BS: Grandpas are for

Subject: BS: Grandpas are for
From: GUEST,bert on kelley's machine
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 01:54 AM

Chewing on when you're teething.
Singing you to sleep.
Holding you all night when you're scared to go to sleep.
Giving you a bottle when you are sure that you haven't been fed for a week.
Telling you how pretty or handsome you are.
Putting on a clean daiper when you are stinky.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:19 AM

Fixing you a special supper.
Taking you for a ride in the country.
Taking you to work and letting you sit where they air the news.
Growing grapes in the backyard that you can pick right off the vine and eat.
Play "Star Wars light sabres" with you in the backyard.
Put a swing set together for you...you guessed it...in the backyard.:-)

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: ragdall
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:44 AM

Building a model airplane while you "help".

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 02:58 AM

Teaching you how to milk a cow without a machine,
Teaching you the difference between cows and bulls,
Letting you up into the attic where your mum has said you shouldn't ever go and giving you the last of the sweet apples,
Always smelling of carbolic soap and cowshit,
Frightening you with scary stories about how he lost the tip of his finger in a big gate, and
Helping you over the big gates.

Guess what my granfer did for a living!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 04:39 AM

My Granfer was a smallholder.......

Showing you what you can eat to survive without regular food supply.
Showing you patience beyond belief.
.....Grandmas.
Taking you fishing or shooting because your dad can't be bothered.
I could think of many.
HEY...I am that Grandad now!!

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Naemanson
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:48 AM

I have to keep track of this thread. I'll become a grandpa in December.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: ragdall
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:07 AM

Naemanson,
Congratulations!

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Becca72
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:26 AM

I'm jealous. I never knew either of my grandfathers. One passed away several years before I was born and the other when I was about 18 months old. :-(

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:48 AM

Letting you eat the leftovers in their lunchbox.
Showing you how to feed the chickens.
Growing raspberries so you can eat them right off the canes.
Always flirting with Grandma, even after a stroke.
Telling you that he doesn't have hair because he was scalped by Indians.
Letting you watch while he shaves with a straight razor.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Alba
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:37 AM

Telling spellbinding stories about the Little People
Always willing to sing just one more song before you go to sleep
Showing you how amazing growing something you planted from seed turn into something you eat.
How to care for, clean up after, ride and/or calm any Horse
Using his callous covered hands to scratch your back
Walking with you on Sundays, him in his best (and only) suit and you with your best frock on and taking you to a wee Cafe after Mass and proudly telling Folks there.. " sure now, do you not see how beautiful my grand~daughter is" (every Sunday *smile*)

Missing when he has gone but leaving you with some of the best memories you have.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: frogprince
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:48 AM

What a delightful thread. My paternal grandfather died before I was born. Mom's father was a good enough old man, a farmer, but a little cantankerous, with a limited sense of humor. My mother was a WCTU
(Woman's Christian Temperance Union)member. Sometime in early grade school I caught Grandpa drinking a beer, and let him know I was horrified, which ticked him off a little. So I guess my Grandpa was for:

Confusing you by telling you that the root beer you'd been drinking was beer too.

Giving you a glass of warm milk just moments removed from the cow.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:54 AM

Both mine died in the 1950s. One was in France during WW1 and I would love to have asked him about his experiences there.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Desdemona
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 10:33 AM

Teaching you silly songs
Cooking your favourite meals "just because"
Making up nonsensical rhymes
Playing endless games of "go fish"
Jiggling babies on his knee while doing the crossword
Unconditional love

What a lovely idea for a thread! I, too, grew up without the daily presence of grandparents: my mother's parents were in England (and so seen rarely), and my father's died when I was very young. I've always thought that the unconditional love of grandparents is like money in the bank for children, and am mindful of how fortunate my children and their cousins have been to have close relationships with theirs. My own dad, a truly terrific and doting grandfather, passed away last winter, and I will always be grateful for all the wonderful, happy time my children were able to with him.

~D

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Janie
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 10:56 AM

Taking you on adventures in the woods to pick pawpaws in fall
Demontrating how to mash honeycomb and butter together to smear onto one of grandma's hot bisquits.
Occasionally, being your 'defence attorney' with Mom & Dad
Teaching you to marvel in the mystery of seed, plant, tree-graft.
Implanting life-long memories of his voice in song, and his big, open-mouthed smile bejewelled with gold fillings.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 12:07 PM

I was thinking of my Rog when I first posted to this thread. One of my granddad's died before I was born, though he lived on through my dad's stories. My maternal granddad lived in Denver, so I only saw him a couple of times a year before he died when I was five, but what I do remember was...

handcrafting hundreds of wooden toys, some for his grandkids, plus every Christmas, one hundred for needy children. And, he let me pick out the ones I wanted whenever I would visit. An Amish carriage now rests on a shelf at Night Owl's house, after she lost everything to fire. I have two little dogs on wheels with strings to pull them by, a duck made the same way, and a few small things, including a rabbit carved for a diorama he made in a fish tank. He was really good with wood.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: SINSULL
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 12:36 PM

I never knew my grandfathers. One died very young - a suicide. The other was banned from our lives for his violent drinking.
But I watch my younger brother dote on his two grandsons. They adore him. He takes them everywhere. Never gets angry even when they really need to be reined in. He clearly loves every minute he spends with them. They call him "Pal" and trust him completely. This was the brother I feared would be an abusive parent because he was the one who was beaten regularly for anything and everything. To watch him with these boys brings tears to my eyes.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 01:20 PM

Serving 180 days in the House of Correction for bootlegging, but leaving you his personal still (and it works!).
Teaching you how to plant potatoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: GUEST,ibo
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 07:43 PM

life,notjust for xmas

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Peace
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 08:49 PM

Forty-eight years and I still remember him.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Rapparee
Date: 06 Oct 07 - 09:29 PM

54 years and I still remember him. Left us his auto-injector for insulin -- that sucker could shoot a stream of water clean across the room.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Jimmy C
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 01:11 AM

I remember both my grandfathers very well. One was a cobbler and the other a binman( garbage collector). The cobbler let me work around the shop with little pieces of leather etc. The other would sing me songs (if I would Borrow som of my father's pipe tobacco tobacco for him).

Now that I am a grandfather six times over I want my grandchildren to remember me as someone who

1 - made them laugh
2 - nearly always took their sides.
3 - Invited them down to the monthly Jam Sessions and bought them op and chips.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Jimmy C
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 01:15 AM

Sorry, submitted too soon.

4 - Let them fool around with some of my old instruments.
5 - had interesting stories to tell them about my father, mother and grandparents.

Mostly I want them to remember me as someone who loved them very much, without spoiling them (well maybe just a little).

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:58 AM

Like Becca, I don't remember grandfathers as they both died when I was very young, so it's lovely to read other folks experiences.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: number 6
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 10:36 AM

Taking you out to buy some pumpkins.

buying pumpkins

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:05 AM

Looks like he loves that red wagon, biLL!

As long as we are posting pix, here's a couple of Morgan on the swing set that "Grandpa" built: Click.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 11:07 AM

it's a lovely pic, biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: SINSULL
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 12:20 PM

But I had wonderful uncles:
Uncle Joe who was convinced I was the most beautiful child on the face of the earth and took us all out for pizza.
Uncle Rudy who was from Sweden and could be relied on to say in a deep scary voice at every meal "Get your fingers out of the peas".
Uncle George who smoked a pipe and could blow smoke rings.
Uncle Mike who chewed tobacco and spat everywhere. He was a "test customer" for McDonald's.
Uncle Ted, the irreverent who got his SS benefits when he bellowed "I came into this life with a bare ass and a hungry belly. How do I know where my birth certificate is?" He spent the nights of the Detroit riots keeping a group of elderly women safe. Bullets in the walls and all. WWI veteran.
Uncle Tommie who took me swimming in a real pool and swam me out to the island center. Poor Tommie drank. And within weeks of giving it up, he was diagnosed with cancer. We were always convinced that the alcohol kept it at bay.
Uncle Charlie, the butcher. Great bar-b-ques. He foolishly destroyed his marriage and hurt a lot of people, mostly himself.
Uncle Wilson and Uncle Bob, brothers. As a tiny child I was allowed to run their miniature railroad with a smoking engine, cattle loading and unloading,and all sorts of bells and whistles.

Each of these men had wonderful stories to tell. Maybe I will write some of them down before I forget them.
M

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: number 6
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:11 PM

Thankyou Sandra.

Kat ... there is nothing more that I can think of, that can warm your heart than by seeing a smile on your grandchild.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: katlaughing
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 03:52 PM

I absolutely agree with you biLL! My Morgan is over here everyday and I always wind up smiling no matter what the day has been like.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: GUEST,Bill the sound
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 08:15 PM

Mine would tell me of some of the things he did in World War One, I never beleived him, but I now have his medals so maybe I should have.
Now I have grandchildren I suppose we are for buying all the things their parents wont give them.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: Mike Miller
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 09:29 PM

I became a grandfather in December of '05 and it has been the most wonderful experience. It is just like being in love, hell, it is being in love.

Grandfathers are for kvelling.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: wysiwyg
Date: 07 Oct 07 - 09:59 PM

Where did my lovely post for my grandpa go?

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: HouseCat
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 01:04 PM

My father's father was a tall, straight, black-eyed Scots-Sioux who ran a hunting lodge on the UP of Michigan and worked on the railroad. He was a bit stern and scary and not very grandfatherly. I have old photos of him from his college days, around 1910-12, and he was as handsome a devil as ever lived, all suited out for football looking quite dashing. He married several times and each wife got progessively worse. My mother's father died before I was born, but how I wish I had known him. He was by all accounts an accomplished musician, self taught, a coal miner by day and a superb singer and guitar player by night. He was my mom's refuge from an emotionally, physically and mentally abusive mother in the days when everyone turned a blind eye. He died of black lung in 1952.

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: GUEST,Bill the sound
Date: 08 Oct 07 - 09:23 PM

I have atee-shirt I sometimes wear to folk clubs it's inscribed
"IF I HAD KNOWN GRANDCHILDREN COULD BE SO MUCH FUN I'D HAVE HAD THEM FIRST"

Subject: RE: BS: Grandpas are for
From: GUEST,The black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 09 Oct 07 - 07:46 AM

One of my grandfathers was a butcher and the other worked as a wine importer.
How come I'm a vegtarian tee-totaler?