Juan Mandez Vigo

I'm going to write about Juan in hopes that one day he will see this! Juan was an exchange student from Spain. My brother Todd was friends with some of the exchange students that went to our high school. It turned out to his advantage, because after high school he was able to visit friends all around Europe. I was pretty jealous, he went hang gliding in Denmark, and has the most awesome photo album with pictures filled from Spain. Anyway in highschool Todd befriended Juan. He was living with some kid who was a jerk and his parents were jerks, so Todd arranged it so that Juan could come live with us. It was pretty cool having Juan around, he was very excitable and friendly. He was intested in new wave styles, he loved The Cure with a passion, and he never complained about being dragged to church every Sunday. He didn't even complain when I kicked his two front teeth out in a trampoline battle of killer butt war! His teeth weren't chipped or cracked, there were two huge ass teeth, roots and all, bouncing around on the trampoline! Both front teeth were reinserted by a Dentist. They are probably still discolored to this day because of me. I felt terrible! I still do! It was the drama of this event that inspired my younger brother Mike to become a dentist!

One night, when we were at church for some random social function, I dragged Juan out to the parking lot where Aaron Wright, Dave Moyer, Juan and myself had a little fun running up and over the rooves of parked cars. It was fun until Juan slipped on the roof his back plunging down into the windshield, which unexpectedly shattered! We got out of there quick and as soon as we were home Juan took his shoes and drowned them in the lake behind our house. We told him not to do it, but he was petrified that the police were going to track down his shoe prints on the car!

One year we took Juan on a road trip with us up to Canada. We had a great time visiting all the touristy sights around Niagra falls. Unfortunately we made the mistake of lying to the border patrol on the way in saying we were all US citizens. We just though it would be easier. Well on the way back Juan's accent gave him away and the border patrol wouldn't let him back into the US. It turned into a huge pain in the ass because Juans passport wasn't stamped before going into Canada. I was ready to fight the border guard and Juan was a bit worried we were going to have to leave him there! When we got back to the U.S. Juan kissed the ground!