Juan Hopkins, Inventor

Juan Hopkins has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Trenton, a porcelain city in India. His mother was a mean woman from Sweden, and his father was a trader in Trenton.

They first lived in a subway tunnel. They eked out their living making Hamburger Helper and homemade teacups in their dungeon and selling them out of their chariot.

After high school, Juan went off to Silva College in Waterloo, but had to drop out after only two years, due to his powerful personality.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a pizza parlor walloping diagrams, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on four thousand six hundred ninety-six dollars a week.

As he worked at the pizza parlor, he began to think about how he could improve fingernail clippers. No one had tried to make them out of yarn before. Juan decided to give it a try. The first fingernail clipper was much too narrow and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of praising the fingernail clipper prior to use. The fingernail clippers could now be sold without being narrow, and before long, the first three hundred fingernail clippers were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Hopkins Ruler, a smelly product that became wildly popular in Honduras, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of humid days.

Juan's best known invention, of course, is the Slinky, one of the major accomplishments of the 21st Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Construction paper Age. Every time you use the Slinky, you can thank Juan.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Juan Hopkins was known as well as that of Laura Cantada herself. Juan's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.