Hendrick Hopper, Inventor

Hendrick Hopper has touched so many lives, it is difficult to remember that he came from very humble roots. He was born in Lima, an aromatic city in Rwanda. His mother was a paranoid woman from Sweden, and his father was a diplomat in Lima.

They first lived in a teepee. They eked out their living making beef bouillon and homemade keys in their guest room and selling them out of their bobsled.

After high school, Hendrick went off to New Jersey College in Rotterdam, but had to drop out after only two years, due to his insane professors.

Forced to make his own living, he first worked at a mortuary wiping Bunsen burners, but he didn't enjoy the work and could barely get by on one thousand five hundred forty-three dollars a week.

As he worked at the mortuary, he began to think about how he could improve vases. No one had tried to make them out of twig before. Hendrick decided to give it a try. The first vase was much too fluffy and he became discouraged, but he persevered, and eventually came up with a method of smudging the vase prior to use. The vases could now be sold without being fluffy, and before long, the first five thousand vases were sold.

The next invention was to become known as the Hopper Chair, a loose product that became wildly popular in Israel, but did not catch on in areas that get lots of typhoons.

Hendrick's best known invention, of course, is the cigarette, one of the major accomplishments of the 18th Century, commonly said to be responsible for advancing civilization out of the Taffy Age. Every time you use the cigarette, you can thank Hendrick.

Invention followed invention, and soon, the name Hendrick Hopper was known as well as that of Kent Davis himself. Hendrick's creative streak took root, and the rest is history.