They were ok grandpa's but they didn't really taught me a lot. They just always were there at family meetings. My dad's dad tried though, he was very very stubborn and conservative (but still an ok grandfather ). He told me to cut my hair every time we met for 10 years. He didn't change his opinion about women with pants neither. My aunts had to hear about it from the 60's until his death (about 40+ years). We always made a little fun about him. He was a hard worker, and advocating that attitude to his grandkids (not a bad teaching). My granddad on my mom's side was more chill and easy going. He spoiled me and my brother a bit as little kids, he was really glad to have some grandkids around. The more mischievous we behaved the more fun he had. They were both dairy farmers.
The war ended decades ago. It seems a shame that people can't move beyond the blame game and see things in just human terms.
Both sets of grandparents were dead before I was 12 I didn't care for any of them, they all smelt bad Paternal grandfather used to take his dentures out in front of me, which would really freak me out, and he had yellow toenails, he was disgusting
My only remaining grandfather (my mom's father) is a bigoted, hypocritical, Italian asshole. He's also a devout Catholic, so go figure. I'm probably not going to feel so bad when he dies. My other grandfather died when I was 6 years old.
Both my grandfathers on my Mom's and dad's side were great dudes...they did like humor and a joke...and not conservative at all as so many grandfathers probably are...the grandfather on my Dad's side was still riding a bloody bicycle in this village at age 84..he died peacefully at the age of 91==Bless him... :daisy:my grandfather on my Mom's side used to love a few beers...he was a baker from profession... I'm at the age..to be a grandfather myself===it did not happen===my wife did not wanted any children;.. :devil: I could have easily made her 5 if she had wanted some kids...no joke..
One died when I was 7, the other a couple of years later, so I didn't know them well. One of them had a glass eye and he would take it out to frighten the children.
For me being a grandfather is an honor ! i have always had a childs imagination and view of life so we get on great My grandfather was a brilliant man , he was knocked off his bike by a car in his early twenties and they took him to the morgue and put a sheet over him , hours later someone looking at the bodies said " this man is still alive " so they patched him up He walked with a limp for the rest of his life and was scarred everywhere ( cars were hard in those days ) But that man had time for everyone ! no one ever got turned away from his door ! he was always there with the tea and a bit of toast for the lowest tramp in the neighborhood us kids used to dive all over him when he came home for his dinner / he had his own groove across the field to the back door where he dragged his leg !! He was a big man and his name was David
my dad's dad was basically a narcissistic, pathologically lying sociopath. and a drunk, although i think he died thinking nobody knew about that (you have to be a narcissist to think you can hide the fact that you got a DUI for driving down a set of railroad tracks thinking it was an actual road). he did accomplish a lot in his life, and i always got along with him myself. but i witnessed enough things and heard enough things to know he was really a messed up character. my mom's dad was pretty much the opposite. he was a great guy who would do anything for anybody, worked his ass off his whole life, and was generally the kind of role model that you expect a grandpa to be. but, he wasn't great with kids and he was the first of my grandparents to die, so i never really got the chance to get close to him.
Father's side. Was Russian. Gambled, drank vodka, married women in their early 20s even when he was in his 50s. Creative and artistic, loved chess and was very successful in business. Died many yrs ago, so I actually learnt nothing from him directly. I'm sure I would have learned lots tho. And I do identify with his mindset a lot. I think I'm much more like him genetically than I am the rest of my family. I suppose I was inspired by him, maybe even with him as a "guardian angel" type figure. Hmm. Mother's side. British. In many ways, a man with a simple, uncomplicated mind. But had lived a life much like a king and also as a normal person at different times. Got on well with him when I was younger. But he offended me in later years with numerous idiotic comments etc. And because he never actually helped me in certain things. Despite the fact he was extremely connected politically + in other ways. Dont think I learned much from him. But I did from the grand life he had when he at his highest profile. Cant say I'm much like him genetically.
Can't say I really get the family thing. (atleast my immediate one) I've always felt it was like someone omnipotent saying "Haha why don't we have HIM as HIS father. They'd hate each other. It will be hilarious". Nor do I think that age equates to wisdom as much as people say. I look at older people and often think "hmm, no fool like an old fool".
My Grandfather took out a shotgun and threatened to shoot the whole family when he lost the farm.That's the only psychopathic event I ever heard about him though.He smoked a pipe,thus the lung cancer.
My paternal grandfather was old as shit in all my memories. Supposedly he was a mean SOB. He always talked really loud. He had a huge ass nose that he passed along to all his children. He was an officer in the Navy, where he flew planes in WWII. Later, he had a dairy farm. I remember when he went into assistant living with his wife, he got in trouble for hitting her. Haha some habits are hard to break. My maternal grandfather is a short guy. He's pretty quiet and laid back. He likes to listen to music and take cat naps throughout the day. He was enlisted AF and a Vietnam Vet.
The grandfather on my father's side ran a hardware store. He was a quiet man, and I wasn't around him a lot. He lived in another state. On my mother's side, that grandfather was a farmer most of his life, but he was done with it before I was old enough to remember anything. He saw limited action in WWII. He taught me a few basic things about crops and animals, but more than anything else, he's responsible for my love of history. I wish I had asked him a lot more questions about history before he died. He had so much in his head. He had great respect for those who constantly want to learn more.
we teach each other to expect things of each other that we forget everyone faces influences to fuck themselves up, to loose and miss opportunities to figure out how things work, and the latter keeps changing too. what i mean by that, is just like each of us do ourselves. that's the same slack i cut for everyone, when i don't have to be around them, or constantly hear their bullshit either. there is no logic in expecting more of others then we do of ourselves. it doesn't mean i actually want to be around anyone though. life fucks up everybody and i'm no saint either. (and neither was any saint in real life for that matter) the longer you live, the more chances you've had to pay attention. some people do and some don't. the only grandfather i know is that i'm old enough to be one myself, and i guess i could be called a step grandfather, to my late wife's daughter's two, that i know of, kids, who are both old enough by now, to be on here, or wherever their interests, which are unknown to me, might take them. like i say, all of mine, well i've just plain never met any of them. my father's father was a holly roller nut who basically killed himself back in the depression of the 1930s. the parents of my father's mother both sounded interesting to me, but were long gone before i came along. my mother's father i never had a chance to meet either, as far as i know. and my father's mother died when he was a year old. my mom's three sisters and their husbands and children i got to meet a very few times. and some of my mother's father's relatives. but really no one i've met more then a hand full of times. most of them only once. and no one on my father's side at all. so this whole business of family, beyond ones immediate parents and siblings, and i have none of the latter either, is just completely terra ingonita to me. as much as if i were an orphan, or raised in the forest by wolves. most of what i hear most people say about it, i actually feel lucky for this to be the case. and sometimes i wonder, everything my parents told me about their childhoods, could all or most of it, be bullshit too, and i would never know nor have any way of doing so.
