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The Grandfather Appreciation Post

DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
edited July 2005 in Strut Central
So, my Gramps just had major surgery a few dayz back. He's now on the road to recovery. But I was a lil worried for a bit, cause he's been the biggest influence in my life. Gramps pretty much built our cottage on his own. Even at the age of 86, he's still moves boulders working on a rock staircase up there.He also bought me my first record player... And I can still remember when I was about 13 and played Run DMC on the way up to the cottage he told me to turn it up!Wish you all the best and get well soon Gramps!Feel free to REP ur Grandparents...
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  • twoplytwoply Only Built 4 Manzanita Links 2,914 Posts
    My grandfather Rob Blickensderfer is the same way. In his eighties, just beat cancer and still paddles circles around people half his age while white water kayaking, serves fools on the tennis courts at the rec center and makes my brain hurt with his texbook writing on thermodynamics. He's also a logger... in his spare time. I helped him pull in some downed trees last summer and after an eight hour day (running up and down steep hills, setting chokers) I'm ready to collapse in front of the TV until bedtime, but he continues to putter around, fixing things, building things and generally staying busy until he goes to bed.
  • bobbydeebobbydee 849 Posts
    my grandad is the smartest, humblest dude i know. He used to fix radios and then later tv's for a living (so he's great with knowing what you need to do with problems with gear). He's retired now, and is a self taught astronomer, and is so good at it he's not only lecturing at uni, but they also gave him an honorary doctorate. Dude built a telescope with his bare hands, bought nothing pre-made but the machined lens'. Would have cost in the vicinity of 15 g's, but it came in just under 2 thousand. He's fighting prostate cancer at the moment.

    Much love to pop's everywhere.
  • coffinjoecoffinjoe 1,743 Posts
    love for all the gramps

    with any luck we'll be able to pass it along to our g-kids one day

    aprecia-love them while they are here
    still miss mine after a decade
    but i'm thankfull for all the gifts &
    very happy i could take those 700 mile round trips
    every couple of months to see him
    the last few years when that parkinson was slowly working on him
    it was the least i could do to pay him back, he got a kick outa seeing his grtgrnd dawta too

    (f-bush & rt wingers for that stem cell ban)

    now you got me all misty







    better go yank paychecks' chain again to lighten up
    or just light de f up

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    Nice one all...


    I never had a father figure up until my teens. Gramps was the one taking me to my hockey games at 5am!

    Anyone else got a story to share?


    Ha, I forgot... My Gramps also hooked me up with a d00d selling a collection once! I bought him shoes as a thank you!
  • CosmoCosmo 9,768 Posts

    still miss mine after a decade

  • Mike_BellMike_Bell 5,736 Posts
    Love and appreciate your grandfather. I lost mine 2 years ago and still miss him to this day.
  • knewjakknewjak 1,231 Posts
    Man, what a great thread. I have to give a shout to my grandfather as well.



    Believe it or not he receintly began giving me drum lessions. He is 85 and still holds it down. He was a drummer during the big band era and just gave me his 1936 Leedy snare drum (the only surviving piece from his kit). I built a kit around it and while I play funk breaks, he shows me up with all sorts of old school rim shots and hi-hat tricks (ala buddy rich, gene krupa).



    Last week I was playing some records for him. And man did his ears perk up when Idris or Bernard let loose. I even played him Malcolm Catto's 'rock' and he got the gasface! "(nodding to the beat)...thats too hard to start with son, stay away from that!"

















    looks just like this one, at around 9" deep it has a very unique sound compared to a modern snare.



  • z_illaz_illa 867 Posts
    we just put my grandfather in a home. he's got alzheimers really bad and keeps taking spills. I am the only granchild that couldn't make the 8 hour drive to see him last weekend.
  • GuzzoGuzzo 8,611 Posts
    still miss mine after a decade




    I came to appreciate my grandpa after his death, and now see him as one of the biggest positive influences in my life. As I've stated on here before I grew up rather poor. My grandpa lived 3000 miles away from me in Miami. Our interactions were not many, usually one visit a year in which My mom, Dad, Brother, and I were flown out to stay with him and my Grandma. He did however pay for my private schooling and made sure that I was taught my Jewish history as well as the hebrew language. I have somewhat vague memories of our times together but I do remember speaking to him on the phone once my sophmore year of highschool while working on a report about the holocaust. He told me about life in Krakow, Poland and about losing his entire family...really heavy stuff for a 80 year old man to be dropping on a 15 year old. The thing is he knew I had to know and he made sure it was instilled in me.



    My grandfather died a year later and I didn't cry. I mean I knew he was a nice guy and I cared for him but I just didn't feel that sene of loss, after I turned 18 I was told he left me a trust fund that was specifically set up to help me go to college. That fund helped pay for my years at UNLV and while at the school I got a trip to Israel. It was in the country that I came to realize how great my grandfather really was. I mean here I was on a college trip speaking the native language and knowing the history of the area and all of that was given to me by this man I had only seen a handful of times.



    Benjamin Gutstein, you are loved and appreciated so much right now and missed incredibly. Thank you for all you've done.



    -Adam



  • parsecparsec 5,087 Posts
    My grandpa was so great in so many ways. He and my grandma were high school sweethearts and were married for over 50 years. I always loved going fishing with him when I was a kid. He was a great father, uncle and grandpa all around. Super helpful guy, I never saw him mad once in my entire life. He passed away in his sleep last year on December 26th. The other day I was going through some paperwork and found a xmas card from my grandparents and damn if I won't keep that card for the rest of my life. I miss you Grandpa!

    Great thread btw.
  • DWGDWG 334 Posts
    Nice thread... definitely struck a chord...

    My grandfather passed away in January and I often think how different my life would have been if I hadn't had him in there.
    He was very creative: he painted canvases, ran a printing press, was a great photographer and filmmaker, loved the outdoors... I remember being very young, visiting him at the printing press and he'd always encouarge me to carry on making my stickers/fanzines/pictures. Without his enthusiasm and help throughout my life I doubt I'd be so interested in creativity now.
    He loved music as well, sitting in his chair playing crazy Austrian music for hours... yodelling.. all kinds of madness.

    I miss ya, buddy.
  • Funky_McVayFunky_McVay 121 Posts
    Love and appreciate your grandfather. I lost mine 2 years ago and still miss him to this day.
  • 33thirdcom33thirdcom 2,049 Posts

    still miss mine after a decade


    Same. both were dude, and had hella life stories.
  • pacmanpacman 1,114 Posts
    These are the threads I love.

    My grandfather (the one I knew the most) passed away valentine's day in 1993. I always remember him as a big man with an even bigger heart. He was a vet like probably many of our grandfathers. Served in WW2 as a CB for the Navy. The coolest thing I inherited from him was when Grandma gave me his duffel bags from the Navy. There was a large green one with his name stamped all over it and a white one with a quarter of the Japanese flag stenciled on it. Those items are probably my favorite things I've ever had.

    For a long with he worked in a stone mill in PA. Only one person ever tried to pick a fight with him. My grandfater was about 6' 5" and solid muscle at the time. He picked up a sledgehammer by the END of the handle and raised it straight OUTWARD from his body. He sat it back down on the ground and told the guy, "when you can do that, then we'll talk." My grandfather always had a way to diffuse a situation. He got diagnosed with cancer and told he had about a year to live. He beat it for 10 more years and then finally gave up. Left my grandma with a house paid off, a car paid off, excellent credit, and an incredible legacy of how he lived his life and was kind to everyone he met.

    I still call my grandma every valentine's day that I can.
  • BeatChemistBeatChemist 1,465 Posts


    still miss both[/b] mine after a decade




    Don't remember my grandfather on my Dad's side... he died when I was about 4 or 5.



    My grandfather on my Mom's side was a great man. Raised a family of 13[/b] kids!! Poor as fuck, but kept shit together. That kind of stress I can't even fathom. I didn't know him extremely well, mostly due to distance, and the fact that I was one of over two dozen grandchildren! So we we're really close. Most of my memories of him involve the anual family 'corn roast' parties he'd throw. The whole fam would get together at his house and basically have a bbq with a HUGE cauldron of corn cooking over a fire. He also helped teach me how to play Euchre. Died about ten years ago. I wish I had known him better, more intimately, but he's still very missed.



    Peace out to grandfathers everywhere! I can't wait to (try to) be an awesome grandfather.



    Yo Guzzo... that story about your gramps is really touching. I hope I can give something like that to my grandkids.
  • CousinLarryCousinLarry 4,618 Posts
    I will flip it a little because both of my grandfathers were less then stellar. My grandma on the other hand is the shit. She will be 91 in Nov. and she still mows the lawn, rakes leaves, and shovels snow. She goes to church everyday and does all kinds of volunteer work. She grew up on a farm as one of 13 kids. Her brother just died a week shy of 100 and both her parents farmed well into their 90's. She lived in Chicago in the 30's was a nurse in WWII and served in Germany. She has more energy then anyone i know and I hope i got some of her genetics because the ones in the rest of my family suck.

    my grandma is
  • asparagusasparagus Northampton, MA 333 Posts
    I never new my dad's father, and I wish I had. He definitely had a bittersweet life, but his love of music passed through my dad and on to me.

    My other grandfather, Grandpa Joe lived to be 93. He was an iron-willed artist, doctor, and family man. He also shared a similar spirit of carrying on family tradition as Guzzo's grandfather and gave everything he earned back to his family. He spent his free time making music (played the cello and piano), smoking Turkish cigarettes (one a day for 50 years), and working on his art - sandblasting and engraving amazing, intricate icons and portraits in glass. He helped my cousins and I pay for school, and was continually self-educating. He was an inspiring man, could speak English, Hebrew, and Yiddish fluently, and loved life to fullest. His spirit lives on.
  • grandpa_shiggrandpa_shig 5,799 Posts
    my grandma is

    she died 11 years ago. i miss her presence in my life something fierce. i miss their ranch. i miss going into "town" to go to church with her. i remember this one time she took me on a trip to oregon. just me and her. kicking it. and somewhere at a central oregon gas station some little guzzo's were calling us chinks and nips all "chinese japanese indian chief" and shit and grandma just turned to me
    and smiled. like a smile that made me feel safe. like that shit solved all my problems right there. i mean, now, in hindsight, just thinking about what that woman had to endure to be able to create a smile like that. one that could speak volumes without saying a goddamn thing. i got nothing but love for her. my bachan.
  • Otis_FunkmeyerOtis_Funkmeyer 1,321 Posts
    Cue: Funky Grand Paw part 1 by The Incomparable Seven





    Greatest Grampa pic evar:













    Left to right:



    In the 3 piece suit with the butterfly collar and cigarette: My mother's father Frank "Choch" Harris, grew up and lived most of his life in Brooklyn, played trumpet and led a wedding/bar mitvah band for 50 years and drove a cab. Rumored to have been in the Jewish Mafia at one time. Smoked 2 packs a day, eventually that's what did him in. They say he hated walking and would drive everywhere, like even one block down the street to get some milk. Lived in CA in his later years, so I didn't get to see him too much before he passed in '86. He gave me two trumpets while he was still alive, and I got his 3rd after he died.



    Middle: My older brother Dave, he was probably 5 or so, this was around 1978. Read all about his various speculations about Bananaman at http://www.newjerseywhitetrash.blogspot.com/



    In the suede jacket and funky shirt with a cigar and a bum leg: My father's father Benjamin Hoffman (Grampa)

    He was the man. He lived in the Bronx his whole life, until his time came in 1998, so I was much closer to him. Came to Ellis Island (his boat and passenger list is on www.ellisisland.org) from Austria in 1914 at the age of 3 with his parents. Had an antiques shop specializing in silver on University Place, and then on 2nd ave on the upper east side, worked as an auctioneer in his later years. When he would visit friends and relatives houses, he would leave little antiques on their shelves without telling them. Got a standing O at my brothers bar mitzvah. He was a great natural musician and the harmonica was his axe. He didn't do much with his talent but he was alway singing and humming and I like to think I got something from him and my other grandfather (I certainly didn't get anything musical from my parents).

    He showed me what unconditional love is. He would have "man-to-man" talks with me and tell me things like "always be your own man" and "never do anything just for the money". I always think of him when I smell a cigar.



  • twoplytwoply Only Built 4 Manzanita Links 2,914 Posts
    I just had to make an extremely hard call to my grandfather. His wife, my grandmother passed away last night. It didn't really hit me until I called him this evening to offer my love and support. He really didn't have much to say, but I couldn't blame him. She cooked for him, cleaned for him, did all the shopping for groceries, clothes, etc. Not to mention she was his constant companion. Over half of his life is now gone. What could I say to him? What could he say to me? It was horrible. I held together while we briefly talked, but as soon as I hung up I lost it.

    My grandfather will survive and continue on, though, because he is an amazingly strong man.

    Here is a story printed in the Oregonian about him.
  • parsecparsec 5,087 Posts
    Hey Twoply, stay strong my man. Its important to remember what a long and great life they did have together ya know? Sorry to hear about that. Be well. J
  • erewhonerewhon 1,123 Posts
    Grandpa #1 was a top-notch plumber. When he died, his basement was full of 100+ italian and portuguese wines and liqueurs he had received as gifts on the job over the years. At his funeral, several of his plumber buddies corroborated a rumor that he installed a special toilet for Nixon for an overnight stay at a local airforce base. It also turns out he also most likely isn't my dad's biological father, but grandma isn't talking on that subject.

    Grandpa #2 was a classic Depression-era schemer. He played banjo, did slight-of-hand tricks, wrote limmericks, built dollhouses, etc. to make money in the absence of steady work. He never told anyone in his family where he immigrated from, but said that he was desended from royalty. His biggest brush with fame and success was when he briefly convinced a struggling Laurel & Hardy that they needed a manager. They agreed, then quickly found one who actually had experience.
  • djstefdjstef 534 Posts
    I never knew either of my grandfathers. My mother's father died when she was just 4 years old. I'll tell my father's father's story.

    He was an actor and movie director in the Philippines in the '30s (called the "Rudolf Valentino of the Philippines"). He married his leading lady, my grandma (R.I.P., "Mom"). During WWII, while Manila was being continuously bombed, he joined the guerrillas in the hills. He was later captured by the Japanese. He was imprisoned at Fort Santiago -- a hell hole wherein thousands of civilians and guerrillas died in the infamous dungeon cells which lie below sea level, leaving no room for escape at high tide. (Philippine national hero Jose Rizal was executed there for inciting people to revolt against the Spanish.) My grandfather survived, but my aunt said, "When he was released, we could not recognize him with his beard and unkempt rags hanging from his emaciated body. He looked like a walking skeleton but thank God he was alive." He was never the same. He tried unsuccessfully to direct more films. He passed away at age 48. At one time, he was the highest paid movie director in Philippine movies. But he died destitute.

    Until just last year, our family thought that all of my grandparents' films had been destroyed in the war. But one of his films, "Zamboanga," was found at the Library of Congress and featured in a film festival in Manila: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2004/feb/09/yehey/enter/20040209ent1.html


    Florence & Marvin Gardner
    (Screen names: Rita Rika & Eduardo de Castro)
  • jinx74jinx74 2,287 Posts
    i missed the opportunity to know my grandfather due to ignorance and self-importance over others, especially family.

    i lost my grandfather in 2000 when he was run down by a truck while riding his bicycle. my family has no idea that i go to his gravesite every month and clean around it. my wife doesnt even know... its one of the worst feelings and something i dont know if ill ever get over.

    so get to know those family members that are (or should be) important to you. get to know their stories of how they grew up, what they did in their lives, etc....

    you may never get another chance.
  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    Hey twoply,

    Sorry for your lost. All the best to you & yours...



    Hey Stef,

    That's great about the film being found. I hope somehow your family can get a copy of it. Very interesting the story of your Grandfather!


    Jix74,

    I hate the way some family members act. My family is going though kinda the same deal. Keeping some members away never is a good move IMO.



    Thx for sharing everyone!



    Side note: My Grandfather is back in the hospital again. I hope he stays strong.


    Peace y'all
  • djstefdjstef 534 Posts
    Hey Stef,



    That's great about the film being found. I hope somehow your family can get a copy of it. Very interesting the story of your Grandfather!



    Thanks, we did get copies! I also found the daughter of a former actress that he did a movie with and she sent lots of photos of the film shoot. I'm going to make a movie poster out of one of them. So thankful to have this stuff.



    Peace to all the lolos, papas, grandpas and granddaddies out there.
  • alieNDNalieNDN 2,181 Posts
    thanks for this thread, i really enjoyed reading all the contributions, Dor, blessings towards your gramps.



    Here's some artifacts I have from my gramps...he was a Goan that travelled the world on a ship and would pen his own tunes...he was also a fan of burt bacharach and the beatles (i know this cause he had their songbooks) and apparently he had a record cut once but someone "borrowed" it back in the day. but basically the dude was ill, taught himself like 7 languages and played tons of instruments (he was nicknamed "tum tum pappa" because they'd describe his love for piano as playing keys making the sound of "tum tum".



    i never really got to know him much as my parents immigrated to canada and he was back in india. but that didnt stop him from connecting, what does he do? tum tum pappa makes me a relgious mix tape of goan choir songs and ships that ish to canada! back in 1984!!! the cassette is in the pic below(i could be possibly the only person in the world to own these tunes right now):



    (also pictured is his band's business card and his old skool zippo, u can't mess with that!)





    i also have some of his original sheet music (written in ink dipped parker pen):







    oh yeah, here's his intro to the mixtape he made for me, i took his voice and just made some background audio to it, nothing special, its just the love in his voice that kills me (that and the content, which makes the dopest sample for a mixtape!)...oh and i'm "babba shawn" that he's refering to:



    http://s63.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0FOW31LPOZ3BB3F3ZVRPQZCB3O



    RIP Tum Tum Pappa

    -babba shawn





  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    Hey Gramps,

    Thx for doing what you did during WWII. I Appreciate everything.

    Billy




    Side note: To everyone else that has/had family that served. Thank you.
  • sabadabadasabadabada 5,966 Posts
    My grandfather has been dead for fifty years so I never knew him, but he was the president of the NYC Board of Aldermen and the acting Mayor of New York from 1918 - 1920. He lost the presidency of the board to Laguardia in one of the closest elections in city history. A friend of the great Al Smith and Jimmy Walker and if it weren't for him there would be no baseball games on Sundays. He was also the Sheriff of Bronx County and the County Clerk and the Director of Public Works in the Bronx.

    true
  • DJ_EnkiDJ_Enki 6,473 Posts

    Weird that this thread resurfaced now. I was just thinking about my grandfather yesterday, and, well:


    still miss mine after over a decade



    And also:
    Hey Gramps,

    Thx for doing what you did during WWII. I appreciate everything.

    And also:

    Thanks for showing me how a good person acts and for being the living definition of the term "quiet dignity." I'm always working to live up to the example that you set without even trying.
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