Quote:
Originally Posted by Dadhawk
That's the way I was with my grandparents. I spent summers on their farm.
I shared mechanical things (tractors, cars, trucks, etc), woodworking, and "farm stuff" with my Grandfather. I could sit and listen to him talk about WWII for hours (he was a paratrooper on D-Day). Some of it was probably actually true.
Shared interest in art, fishing, food (her cooking, me eating), love of historical interests (museums, historical sites) and general mule-headiness with my Grandmother.
|
I had great times with my maternal grandfather. He never served in the war since he was a brass casting mold maker and deemed essential services for the war manufacturing effort (for obvious reasons). He was a musician that played stand up bass in a swing/rockabilly band (think Stray Cats) which to the 40s and 50s was about the equivalent of heavy metal music today. He was also a pioneer in the development of rock music and in the late 60s would break out his old electric guitar and knock off a few Hendrix riffs for me. I am told that I inherited my sense of humour and wit directly from him but unfortunately he passed away when I was only 13 so my memories are a bit fuzzy even though I spent a very good part of my youth with him. We worked on cars, built models and did a shitload of fishing together pretty much every weekend until I started working when I was 12. My grandmother only passed away 4 years ago and she was also very good to me through my childhood. It didn't come out until after her death that she was actually a sort of groupie for the band back in the 40s and my uncle who is 3 years younger that my mother actually had a different father. She obviously had a wild side that I never saw.
My paternal grandfather was not in the war either since he was a lumberjack so also an essential service worker that could not sign up for military service. He was a very quiet and introverted man so I doubt we exchanged 100 words in all our time together.
They were about as opposite as you could possibly get.