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Pop, as I called him, was a salesman, who did gigs (jobs as a musician) for various events around the San Francisco-Bay Area till 1960. A quiet man, though when he led a band, shortly, during WWII, he became alive ! It was his gift, playing trumpet/cornet, and he wanted others to enjoy that gift.
Devoted to his family, visited relatives in his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana.
Always had to have bread with his dinner.
One of my earliest memory, he being baptized by immersion at First Baptist Church, Oakland, California. His love for his fellow man; he and Mom had many friends from before the war, and those made later in life.
Not perfect parents, though wanted me to know my Heavenly Father of which I'm so grateful.
My own grandfathers were both nice men. Not as much interaction as you would have today.
My maternal grandfather lived in Canada and had owned a hardware store in the small town they lived in. He retired at around 65 and he and his wife led a very simple, quiet life. We saw them a few times during childhood but I don't think they liked air travel and neither did our mother. My own father loved to fly however. Very nice people though.
My paternal grandfather worked in advertising until he had his 40 years in, then took a chunk and formed his own advertising agency. I think he worked until 75 or so. He had an office and employees and we'd meet them for dinner from time to time a couple of times a year. I don't think my grandmother did a whole lot; I think her life was pretty boring actually.
My own father wanted lots of children and loved his family. He came from a small family (just he and a brother). My father was very protective of our mother - if we talked back to her, oh boy, we got spoken to. We never got hit but he would use the full name and you knew you were in trouble.
After moving to Florida, he drove me to school many mornings and I also worked with him for a time so I got to see the other side. He was very good to his employees and staff but he made some poor financial decisions. I think he saw a future not yet there in South Florida and he just didn't have the funds to keep it going. My brother and I was close to our dad.
So, today, I miss him. Not a perfect person but none of us are.
Faith was very important to both my parents. Education and just living in a safe neighborhood were important to them as well.
My own parents were blessed with 12 grandchildren born within 7 years of each other. They knew each one well, went to all their sports activities, babysat and had overnights when needed (often multiple kids at once) and never complained. Both my parents absolutely loved that part of their life.
Mine was beyond awful so I’ll skip him, but I will share that my maternal uncle was a wonderful uncle, husband and father to my cousins. He was my role model of what a good man and father should be.
I had a fairly distant relationship with my dad. I don't remember any real affection, although I was taken care of.
That pretty much describes my father. He was almost 60 when I was born and he had been an only child so he really didn't know how to interact with kids. Just sort of put up with me; I was always so jealous of kids I knew whose fathers actually did things with them. No backyard game of catch with dad for me; my brother-in-law who took me fishing a lot was more of a dad to me.
Never knew my paternal grandfather as he died many years before I was born. Maternal grandfather was a grumpy old guy who only spoke Polish and was actually kind of scary to be around and died when I was 5.
It wasn't exactly a Father Knows Best lifestyle around our house.
I always swore that I would do better as a father but then we couldn't have children so that went out the window.
Difficult to say. They were rather two different men, from my POV, so I will talk of the one I knew best. He loved me because I was independent, exasperated because I was so much into fantasy, was quite intelligent and yet quite missing in essential points he should have known such as using grey water for food growing, and while he backed me as an Arms Mistress, I wonder what he would say if when he was alive that I would team up with an ex SEAL arms dealer......he was very anti AR-15.
Of now, being a ranch owning marine biologist cowgirl with a herd of cats that get away with murder.....or being this age and never married for that matter. Well, he probably would have loved that I have an F-250..........(ring ring) "Say, Tam, your Mother and I haven't seen you for a while, so why don't you drive up for the weekend........and bring your truck, your mother has seen stuff at Lowes she wants to have.".
Paternal Grandfather, retired from Indiana to a flat (apartment) in San Francisco. It was fun to watch him dance, when I asked. Learned from YouTube, he did what is called flat footing, like clogging.
Choose to remember good times. Wish I had known more of their earlier lives.
I was close to my maternal grandfather. He passed away in 2009.
My paternal grandfather is still alive, though in bad health in a skilled nursing facility. We were never close. Growing up, he was always drunk or in jail. He has over a dozen DUIs, numerous other violent felonies, stole from a NASA facility back in the 1960s, beat his wife, beat his kids, just a real piece of work. His own father committed suicide, and that shook him for years. He was threatening to blow people's brains out as recently as a few months ago before his health took a dramatic downturn.
My maternal grandfather was about 2.5 years older than paternal grandfather. Maternal grandfather died at 77 in 2009. Paternal grandfather is still kicking at 88 or 89. I don't remember his birth month. If he would stop fighting medical treatment, he might even make a recovery. His problem is he won't get out of his own way.
Maternal grandfather never drank. Paternal grandfather was a three bottle of bourbon a day drinker for over fifty years. One guy did everything right, the other guy did everything wrong, yet the guy who did everything wrong is here nearly fifteen years later. Until the last year or so, he was still able to work for himself, and do basically whatever he wanted to do.
My paternal grandfather isn't really a grandfather to me. I had a lot of other old men who ended up being additional grandfathers to me. They're all mostly dead, but they were much better men than my paternal grandfather could have ever hoped to be.
My maternal grandfather was a semi-literate farmer who was a functioning alcoholic. He so got on my grandmothers nerves that she divorced him in the 1920s and moved to the big city, New Orleans. I cannot recall ever meeting him but I may have. He died on my birthday in '64.
My father's father was different, and had become disabled as a mail truck driver. He lived next door when I was very young in the fifties. At that time, my father's younger brother liked nothing better than reporting to my mother the misdeeds he had caught me in. I never knew how he saw me so often because he was working then.
But my grandfather gently told me to get down from a telephone pole when I was trying to dislodge a wayward kite from the wires with paper scissors. There also was in my neighborhood three large silos used to store road salt for the city. They previously held coal for the trains which rumbled on the tracks in my neighborhood. There was a ladder on the side which a kid could reach if he jumped up. I was able to climb all the way up to the pilot house with a friend. My grandfather called from me on the ground, with his friend the caretaker, and told me to come down slowly.
What amazed me is that he never told a word of any of this to my folks. What I loved about my grandpop is that he knew how to keep his mouth shut. He died in the early sixties at 78 when I was 12. He had been married to my grandmother for 50 years before she passed in '58.
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Thinking of all dads today
