My name is Andrew Armstrong. I am an artist, designer and college academic. I was born and raised in a small agricultural community in Imperial County, California and moved to Los Angeles in the late 90s. My story is about how my grandfather, my mother's father, once made lemonade out of lemons. It was 1960 and my grandfather, Manuel Antonio Sigala, was in his early 20s. He was working on a small feedlot, making feed, maintaining the facilities, and caring for the livestock. The work was backbreaking, dirty, hot, and dangerous, and my grandfather was glad to have one other man he could always count on to help with the work, his friend, John. John, who was a full -blooded Apache from the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. One day, after a rare rain, my grandfather slipped on wet cement and reached to catch himself on the grain mill, fumbling for a hold, his hand got caught between a chain and a sprocket. As he instinctively pulled away, his right finger was torn off by the machine. There was pain, of course, but my grandfather believes he might have been in shock because he calmly and indomitably told John to feed the cattle simple bails of hay to hold them over for the day. Together they went into town to see the local physician, Dr. Chapman, who offered my grandfather two choices. He could amputate the mangled portion, leaving a stump, or he could remove the finger entirely. My grandfather, thinking half a finger would look worse than a missing one, chose the second option and lived the rest of his life with nine. It was many years later, well into my teens, that I realized he was missing one. Weeks later, Osha sent him a check for fifteen hundred dollars, which was a lot of money during a time when his wages were seventy -five cents an hour. With this money, my grandfather wisely purchased a lot and eventually secured financing to pay for a home to be built. My mother and her siblings were all raised in this home and as a large growing family we all enjoyed our Christmases there. My grandfather and grandmother still live in the house to this day.