My grandfather James Peck was a civil rights activist.
As I remember my grandfather and those Christmas mornings he gave for a little girl's pleasure, I know that often a big life starts with doing small things.
I was named after my Jewish grandfather who left Poland early in the 20th century. What I knew from an early age was that he had lived most of his life in England, his Jewish wife had died, and he married a non-Jewish woman who was my grandmother.
I have a ranch in Montana, but it's not a real working ranch. I've always liked the outdoors. I come from Texas. My grandfather was a farmer; that's as close as I come.
When you're all singing together, it brings things together. I know the songs that my grandfather and my father sang.
My grandmother on my father's side, a nightclub singer, was a Jewish refugee from Prussia who ended up in Jerusalem, where she met my grandfather - a British army officer. I remember as a child having bowls of chicken soup made by her. There were lots of interesting components, like feet and necks.
As a young kid, I had a great background. My grandfather was a minister; I have two uncles that were ministers, and so I had that spiritual background. I accepted Christ early as a kid.
If anything, I'd say my family was entrepreneurial - my grandfather and father. It was in our blood. But I didn't have this one mentor that was super successful.
My favorite part was when my grandfather and I would make a special trip to Firpo's Bakery for red and green Christmas cookies and fruitcake studded with the sweetest cherries I've ever tasted. Usually Firpo's was too expensive for our slim budget, but Christmas mornings they gave a discount to any children who came in.
I'm lucky: almost all my family has lived to be very old. I have one grandfather who lived to be 100.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
I met my grandfather just before he died, and it was the first time that I had seen Dad with a relative of his. It was interesting to see my own father as a son and the body language and alteration in attitude that comes with that, and it sort of changed our relationship for the better.
It's my name on the ballot, and it's me running this race. I'm the one doing this. Not my father and not my grandfather and not my great-uncle and not President Kennedy.
My grandfather was from Aberdare. He was a coal miner who emigrated and then continued mining in Pennsylvania.
I've met the Dalai Lama briefly, but I would probably say my grandfather was the wisest person I ever met. He was my mother's father, an Indian, a family doctor, and very unlike me in that he was deeply religious.
My paternal grandfather was a failed novelist. He stacked boxes of rejected manuscripts in a closet.
I had the lunchbox that cleared the cafeteria. I was very unpopular in the early grades. Because I hung out with my grandfather, I started to bring my lunchbox with sardine sandwiches and calamari that I would eat off my fingers like rings. I was also always reeking of garlic.
At school, I'd be the dude singing to the girls, always up in the auditorium, in the lunch room singing Christmas carols, in the halls between class. I was always singing, and same thing with my grandfather. The apple doesn't fall too far from the tree; you know how that goes.
The name America has definitely grown on me. I wish there was a big patriotic story behind it, but the truth is that my grandfather was a librarian who knew all sorts of random facts.
My dad's a bodybuilder. My whole life I've been taught to train the hard way. I believe in earning strength, not buying it. My grandfather raised me old school: In baseball, you work for whatever you get.
People have said I'm a puppet, an instrument of my grandfather, but I think they quickly realised that I'm my own person, that I have autonomy in my actions. I think they rapidly realised I could look after myself.
As I look at the barn in my ninth decade, I see the no-smoking sign, rusted and tilting on the unpainted gray clapboard. My grandfather, born in 1875, milked his cattle there a century ago.
My father is a very hardworking guy, and that's his focus in life, so I got a lot of the paternal attention that a boy wants and needs from my grandfather.
Did I collect baseball cards? I've got 10 books full of plastic in my mother's house. All the Upper Decks, the Fleers, the Fleer Ultras. My grandfather brought me to the trade shows. I collected Marvel cards, too.