As a boy growing up in the small town of Florida, Puerto Rico, Robert Perez’s grandfather encouraged him to be a doctor.

&#8220He said, ‘We don’t have any doctors in the family. You will bring pride to the family and stimulate the other generations to go to college and get professions,’ ” Perez, now of Bowling Green, said last week.

Perez’s father also encouraged him and told him that being a doctor could help &#8220make people feel better, healthier,” Perez said.

Perez, 72, who then used the last name of Perez-Varella to honor both his parents, as was common in Puerto Rico, liked the idea of becoming a doctor, so he devoted himself to his studies.

His father, a general store owner, worked hard to help his son.

&#8220He said, ‘I may not leave you any money, but I can leave you an education,’ ” Perez said.

Soon, Perez was a student at the University of Puerto Rico, where he earned a bachelor’s of science degree in 1955.

&#8220Then, I went on to medical school and graduated in ’59 at University of Puerto Rico,” Perez said.

But he didn’t want to stay in his native land.

&#8220When I started looking for a place to do my internship, I wanted to see snow” for the first time, Perez said.

When he was accepted at the University of Buffalo in New York, Perez was thrilled.

&#8220The snow came in the middle of the night,” he said. &#8220Everybody got dressed up at night and went to a little park and were cavorting like children.”

Perez became dear friends with his classmates, and also found love in Buffalo with local young lady, Gerry Szymanski.

But Perez wouldn’t settle in New York, though he continued to date Szymanski after he finished his internship at University of Buffalo and returned to Puerto Rico to work for three months as a general practitioner in the public health service.

He also dated her after he was drafted into the Air Force, for which he worked as a flight surgeon and was first stationed at Brooks Air Force Base in Texas.

After three months at Brooks, Perez was off to Morocco.

At first, he dreaded the assignment.

&#8220But then I thought, ‘This is someplace I normally wouldn’t have gone, and they’re paying for it,’ ” he said.

Perez spent one year in Morocco and flew all over Europe during that time.

&#8220I got to see quite a bit,” Perez said.

One of his favorite places was Spain, where his ancestors lived before making their home in Puerto Rico generations before Perez was born.

He also got to buy a new car, a Jaguar, from the factory in England.

&#8220I took a vacation and it was a fantastic trip,” he said.

The one thing missing from the trip was his love, whom he had decided to marry.

So when Perez’s time in Morocco was up, he returned to Tampa, Fla., to Strategic Air Command and got married during that time, when the United States was embroiled with the Russians in the Cuban Missile Crisis.

At the time, &#8220I flew with pilots on B-52s, on alert in case the Russians did anything,” Perez said. &#8220The B-52s were loaded with atomic bombs and there were several B-52s in the air continually, 24 hours a day.”

Later, Perez was on a B-52, flying from Tampa to Spain, when he got the news that President Kennedy had been killed.

&#8220Everybody thought, ‘Oh, if the Russians will do something we’ll go to Russia” instead of Spain, Perez said. &#8220I’ll never forget that experience in the air over the Atlantic with orders to change course if Russia tried to do anything.”

While nothing came of Perez’s fears, he was deeply saddened by the loss of Kennedy, whom he and his wife had seen in a parade when they honeymooned in Washington, D.C.

&#8220He was such a loved president,” Perez said.

It wasn’t long after Kennedy’s assassination that Perez was accepted into residency, while still in the Air Force, at Albert Einstein Medical Center and Temple University Medical Center, both in Philadelphia.

By then, the doctor, who had begun only using Perez as his last name to avoid confusion, knew he wanted to be a urologist, and he and his wife were parents to their first son, Manuel Robert Perez III.

Two years later, in 1968, Perez finished his residency.

In 1971, he and his wife had their second son, Kevin, while Perez was stationed, as chief of urology, at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois.

At the time, Perez was a lieutenant colonel and the war in Vietnam was raging.

&#8220Morale was low” in the military then, Perez said.

Tired of all the negative media coverage of the war, and the decreasing morale among service members, many doctors decided to leave the military, Perez said.

Perez was among them.

Soon, he took the path of fellow Air Force doctors Frank Buono and Robert Goodwin, who had left the service and moved to Bowling Green, Perez said.

&#8220They called me up and said, ‘Why don’t you come to Bowling Green and see if you like it because we really need a urologist,” Perez said.

Perez, who had never heard of Bowling Green, soon found he liked the city, which he called &#8220a little university town, nice and clean, not far from Nashville.”

And &#8220I was busy from day one” as a urologist here, he said.

But he found time to join the Air Force Reserves, &#8220so I could get my 20 years (of service in) and enjoy retirement.”

It wasn’t until 1998 that Perez retired from the military.

He didn’t decide to retire from medical work until this summer.

&#8220If I had to do it all over again, I would have done it the same way,” Perez said. &#8220But I thought, ‘I want to retire while I’m still healthy and enjoy it.’ ”

Now, Perez is enjoying life to the fullest.

He and his wife often take trips in the single engine airplane he bought in 1986, after he finished flying lessons he began in the early days of his Air Force career.

&#8220We have flown this little airplane to the Bahamas three times, going scuba diving with the kids,” Perez said. &#8220I flew it to the Cayman Islands across Cuba. I had to get special permission (to do that). And we have flown to many places on the East Coast and to visit Kevin,” who lives in Denver.

Perez also enjoys wood carving, a craft taught to him by Goodwin, who is known all over the country for his wild fowl carvings.

The doctor also enjoys working around the house, &#8220helping my wife with flowers and in her garden” and acting as a general &#8220handy man,” he said.

His children and grandchildren are special joys for him.

He’s proud that his son Rob followed his dream to be a pilot – and is now a captain for Continental Airlines – after having a successful career in business.

He’s thrilled that Kevin, who became a pilot in his teen years, is a successful lawyer and the father of two little girls, who visit Perez and his wife regularly.

And Perez is proud of his own life.

&#8220Growing up in a little town with nothing, in kind of a rural community smaller than Scottsville, when I look back at what I’ve accomplished, I say, ‘That’s fantastic … ,’ ” Perez said. &#8220I set my mind on something and I accomplished it, and I’m very grateful to the Lord that he led me to what I’m doing and I accomplished it.”

He’s also proud that he fulfilled his grandfather’s prediction that if he would study hard and set an example, his younger five siblings and other family members would follow.

&#8220Since then, we have five doctors in the family, about a dozen lawyers, engineers, teachers, pharmacists, about every profession,” Perez said.

Now, Perez would encourage any young person who thinks their dreams are too hard to achieve, to work as hard as they can to strive for them.

&#8220You can easily get a scholarship” to go to college, he said. &#8220You can get a loan. If you set your mind on something and you have the ability, you should try, go for it.”

Linda Herrington, who was office manager for Perez in his medical practice, where she still works, for six years, said Perez &#8220is the nicest person you’d ever want to meet.”

&#8220He’s kind (and was) kind-hearted, good to his patients,” Herrington said. &#8220A lot of them really got upset that he was leaving, cried and everything. You just don’t find doctors that have that good a bedside manner anymore.”

Dennis Baack, who was Perez’ assistant for 35 years in Bowling Green, said Perez is an honest, generous and caring person, whose primary concern in his work was the health of his patients, &#8220whether they had insurance or money to pay the bill” or not.

&#8220He was always concerned about children” in particular, Baack said. &#8220He wanted to make sure they had the best medical care, regardless of the family’s situation. He would make personal calls to the hospital if financing needed to be set up for surgery. He would do whatever it took to make sure his patients got the best care they could.”

Baack said Perez is humble about the many innovations in medicine – including seed implants to combat prostate cancer and a surgery to help females beat incontinence – he brought to Bowling Green as the town’s first board certified urologist.

The &#8220whole environment” Perez brought to medical care was impressive, Baack said.

&#8220His long-term patients became friends,” Baack said. &#8220They would talk about their vacations and trips and their families and he always made time to listen no matter how much time it took or no matter what they had to say. He never wanted them to feel rushed. … He would even make notes on the side to remind him to ask how their sister did in surgery or how their family vacation was.”