meet my late gung-gung

day 66: this mural is painted on an apartment building found on Stockton St. in Chinatown. it's been up on the building for years now and every time i see it a little sense of pride fills my heart. the man you see in this photo resembles my late grandpa to a t. now i don't know whether the subject in this picture is actually him or not. my guess is someone took random pictures of people around town and chose to put them in their mural. for all i know it's based on a random guy that just so happens to look like my grandpa. but as long as it's up there, i'm going to pretend it's my grandpa immortalized on a wall. every time i walk/drive by i think "that's MY grandpa! he's watching over us from above and there's our reminder." 

my gung-gung wasn't much of a talker. in fact when he did speak it was usually due to his short temper. i recall him being really stubborn and demanding. this man taught himself to read and write english by slowly figuring out each days newspaper but he didn't speak a lick of it. isn't that amazing??? i think it's insanely awesome. he was really in to wrestling, specifically the WWF. Hulk Hogan and Andre the Giant were a big part of my childhood because of him. i also remember him microwaving or boiling hotdogs at random times of the day for my brother and i for a snack. i always viewed that as his way of showing us he cared or was thinking about us without ever having to use words. odd, i know, but it makes complete sense to me. oh, and once he let me wear my favorite tutu for three days in a row after i begged and pleaded. what was i doing with a tutu? i've never attended a second of ballet class in my life. maybe it was more like a leotard but i can say the same for gymnastics. so where exactly did i get these bizarre clothing options? i digress. he and my poh-poh baby sat us a lot when we were younger. we'd sleep over and catch mice in their house. sounds gross now, but when i was younger, it was a lot of fun finding them on those sticky pads. haha!! anyway, my grandpa is no longer with us. i never got to say a proper goodbye. by the time i got to the hospital, he had already passed. that's why every time i drive through Chinatown i purposely drive down Stockton St so that i am awesomely reminded of him.