What is/was your grandfather like? What did he teach you? Are/were you close to him? Grandfathers are so precious.
My grandfather on my moms side thought I was the downfall of society. For some reason he never really liked me and literally until the minute he died it never really resolved itself. I just lied to him the day he died and told him everything was fine. So much I wont get into here. My grandfather on my dads side bailed before my dad was born. My dad never spoke to him. I met him once. I knocked on his door. Introduced myself. He slammed the door in my face so when he died I crashed his funeral and told his entire family about the family he left behind. Needless to say that funeral wasnt so much about him anymore. Just what he deserved. NOTHING.
I spent formative years with grandpa. he always appealed to my sense instead of his authority when he gave instruction. Now i am grandpa.
I mainly knew my Grandfather on my Mother's side.He died of lung cancer when I was about six.I do have memories of him,and I've always been told that he adored me.He was flying bomber planes in the second world war,and intermittently smuggling whisky from Ireland.He met my Grandmother shortly after the war.He was her second husband,quite unusual back then.After the war he started operating a large farm and sent the children to private school,but he truly wasn't cut out for it and ended up betting the farm in a poker game and lost.He had enough money left to buy a nice cottage in Northamptonshire and got a job in the local steelworks where he remained. He was also a professional jockey and won many point to point races,earning him a place to ride in the Grand National,which is now one of the biggest horse races in the world.Unfortunately he fell ill just before the race,so a friend took his place,but his horse Polonius was in the race.Even after he went bankrupt my Mum still had a horse stabled at the back of the cottage.His name was Colin and my Grandmother's was Dorothy. My abiding memories of him are when he would drive me to a larger town to get my haircut and get me egg and chips in a café.
My grandparents on the two sides were of different ages. My grandfather on my dad's side was born in Ireland in the 19th century, came over here as a young child, was a soldier in WW I, he was gassed and blinded for several months, recovered,married a french woman, settled down and had a successful business. He wanted me to be brought up as a catholic, which caused some conflict as my mum is a protestant. I remember him as a mild natured old man, who would never say much about his war experience. He knew a lot about horses, and could do beautiful copper plate handwriting. As kids he and grandma would play cards with us for hours. He died when I was 16, at 84 from complications following surgery. He never smoked or drank. My other grandfather was younger. His father was killed in WW I, and he'd been a soldier himself, during the 1920's and later in the second world war. After the war with the rank of major, he went to work for the civil service. He was a heavy smoker, and died of lung cancer aged 82. In his later days, I used to go out for a drink with him on a weekly basis.He always remained very well dressed, always wore a trilby hat. He was full of stories about life in the 20's, 30's, the war. I used to love to listen to him talk. He taught me quite a lot about woodwork, paving, some building. He was an intelligent and capable man. Thoroughly racist - but that was a generational thing.
One died before I was around, one always pretended to hate me (along with the rest of the world). He was a pretty neat guy, just a little bit odd/damaged. Very old-fashioned in some ways, very liberal and forward-thinking in others, despite his best efforts. Fought himself a lot, I think.
he was a good decent person he taught me how important it is to have a dirty garage so the wife stays the fuck away from you when youre in there not as close as i should have been...he's currently about a half mile away in the same place as the other grandparents he is also the only person ive known who smoked pipes like popeye..and wore wool hats....he was pure french canadian lumberjack stereotype looking
I am the worlds best I have a cup and a pair of socks declaring this honor :daisy: Seriously I am Edit Worlds worst fucking husband though
My grandfathers were two great inspiring people with a lot of life experience and adventures. I couldn't be bothered trying to defend the subjection of nazism that will be applied if I told their stories, but one was quite astoundingly accomplished. One of them still lives and is cared for my family.
Telling an individual's stories is great, good on them if they had good lives and didn't harm others. You can't help where you're from. But telling an individual's stories of nazi glory.... yeah, if you have to like nazis to like your grandfathers, they were never more than shit. nazi ideology is shit, if you have to appreciate it to appreciate somebody, that somebody deserves no appreciation.
never met any of my own. i'm a step grandfather in a manor of speaking, in as much as when i married my then wife's daughter had a couple of little ones. but i don't think i've ever met any of them since the wedding in 96. which means their both adults by now, or close enough to it. for all i know, any of the people i know only from on line, could even be one of them. the wife died 5 years ago, and my mom 6 months later. the only grandparent of mine i ever met, was my mom's mother. that was more then 50 years ago when i was 11. and she was dying at the time. i've really never knowingly met any relatives of my father. those of my mother whom i met, i've only seen a very few times. i no longer know the actual addresses, or other contact information, of any of them. i don't attach any particular importance to this, but i am curious and have no wish to slight any of them. being of the age i am, chances of any relatives older then myself, still being alive, are rather slim.
On the maternal side, all I can say is that I only met the guy a couple of times and only once that I remember. The one visit I remember was a mixed bag and semi-traumatic in parts. On the paternal side: He was a drunk, a womanizer, an incestuous child molester, a terribly neglectful father who was rarely around his family, and a con man. We were not close, and the longest I ever spent in the same room with him was at his funeral. My grandkids, on the other hand, have a pretty cool grandfather. :crowngrin:
Highly accomplished never meant anything that you guys are taught, all the nasty things. One of them just earned a lot of medals and accomplishments. For instance, I can take a photo if need be as I have all his medals in my safe but one of his Iron Cross First Class was awarded to him for dragging out several men from a burning Panzer while being shot at. That earned him the silver backed Cross, First Class. He fought primarily in the East. He died some time ago and left me with all the decorations, I'm the only sister of the family that really took an interest. In reality? He was no different to your American soldiers seeking action and adventure, politics really played no part. He was trained, he excelled. -shrug- It's been documented many times that under different circumstances, many of the soldiers fighting one another would have probably been really good friends. My other grandad, he was all in it for the adventure too except he was on the west side of the map. He earned a second class Iron Cross, twice, for also achieving a goal while under fire. His stories are much different from my other granddaddy. It was more "fun" in a sense, from what I can understand anyway. I don't think the fighting was as ferocious where he was. He told me a story once where you learn find peace when the bullets are pinging all around you. It's the bullet that you don't hear is the one that hits you. He got shot in the foot. Also he says it's amazing how many people get shot in the foot and in the buttocks. Seems to be a bullet magnet the old butt cheeks.
my grandfather on my dad's side died a long time before I was born, when my dad was only 3. He has always been a bit of a mythological hero in my family. He left this area as a young teen and went west, starting out at his brother's ranch in Montana but he decided it was too enclosed and the sky in that part of the country was too big so he rambled on, trapping game and doing farmhand work along the way (he wrote about all of this so that's how I know). He eventually ended up doing the famous Salinas, CA rodeo for a few years and even got to be in a couple of Will Rogers (or maybe it was Roy Rogers, I get them mixed up) films. He came back to this area eventually and fell in love with my beautiful grandmother. my family actually just nominated him for the Salinas rodeo hall of fame. my grandfather on my mom's side died when I was 11 but we weren't close at all. He had psychological issues stemming from WWII and just wasn't a very warm person.
there is heroes on both sides in war men just follow orders from stories ive heard one of mine could not serve due to an arm injury (stabbing) while breaking up a fight...the other ran away into the wilderness to avoid joining...i have no idea how true either of those stories are.
My grandpa was a german fighting for the U.S. against Germany. One of his battles was the bridge over Remagan
Well that's all fine with me. Sounds action packed. Well yes, and no. Some follow good orders, some don't. Some follow bad orders, some don't. Some follow good or bad orders to the fullest or least extent they're capable. Some give the good orders, some give the bad orders. Obviously it's largely not up to the individual, even if they do bad shit they likely had no choice (and had to make that nonexistent choice through a haze of brainwashing and war). And in other ways, it is - think the terrible war crimes committed by US troops (allegedly a modern, disciplined, trained, civilized fighting force) in iraq - there doesn't need to be a top-down order to exterminate races to make people do really nasty things when you give them a gun and impunity, lots do stuff they shouldn't - but extermination efforts sure do have a way of helping people do nasty things. Generally I don't think you can blame the soldiers themselves in any very serious way, unless they personally did something pretty terrible - but that doesn't mean you need to be an apologist for their side.
