Ben Martinez was a man of many characters and professions. He rode horses, herding sheep in New Mexico during his youth.

When the family moved to Denver after 1920, he said that he learned to drive a Mack type truck hauling large loads of newspaper around the city.

He was a lawman of some type and said he quit because he couldn't support a family on what he was being paid.

He was well known in the Denver community, at least in the places he frequented. One of his favorite watering holes was called Solomon's on Larimer Street. I remember going there with him in the mid-1950's; him with his signature cigar in mouth, wearing a stylish fedora hat and decked out in a handsome suit.

He was the pillar of the family, mediating trouble and dispensing justice when necessary.

His children called him "Daddy, and my brothers and I called him "Dad".

He bailed my family out of more jams than anyone else that I can remember. His hand was always extended to help those less fortunate and he seemed larger than life to me when I was a little guy.

When our family was low on money and food, he would pull up to our house in his Buick, Oldsmobile or Pontiac sedan, and drop off enormous sacks of day-old donuts and other treats. These sacks were of the long, tubular, paper-type, seldom seen these days.

We kids would eat our fill and mom would then make bread pudding out of the rest that had gone stale and rock hard.

As Grandpa would leave, he would always give my mom some cash to carry us through. He would always give myself, and each of my two brothers, a 25-cent piece. Big money for a kid in those days of the "Penny Candy".

I last saw him at his 100th Birthday which was attended by so many people, I couldn't count them all. They were family, friends and acquaintances, many of which I had never met.

He was so excited to have received birthday card greetings from Bill Ritter, The Governor of Colorado; and George W. Bush, The President of the United States.

When I asked him what he thought of living so long, he said the saddest part was seeing his friends, children and relatives die, one-by-one.

Ben passed away at the age of 103.

A Good Man, by any measure.