This is an interesting thread. I'll get back to reading after I share (5 o'clock is coming up). On my mom's side, my grandparents were French farmers. My grandfather fought in the French army during World War II and was put in a (regular) concentration camp after the surrender. He escaped and returned to the farm 3 times. The first time, he was caught. The second time, he was turned in by a neighbor. The third time, he remained free. He died when I was teenager, a couple of years after his wife. I, in part, inherited their house in France. I never knew him or my grandmother well because they spoke a French dialect called Marachain. My father's father probably had the most impact on my life though he died first, when I was young. Everyone called him Pops and he had a strong influence on me through my father. He was a Texan. He was a painting contractor, a union man, and a liberal. My father told me a story the other day about how a black contractor from New York came down to Texas to work in 1960 and was hiring. He had a new-fangled airless paint sprayer. No one wanted to work for him because he was black, but my grandfather did and learned how to use this machine. They became friends, which was a local scandal. I knew my father's mother best, because she lived the longest. She was from the North and moved to Texas later in life. She was a dental hygeinist when it wasn't too common for women to work. She and my grandfather divorced and both remarried. My grandmother married a wealthy gold prospector and moved to Arizona. She was tired, allegedly, of being poor all the time. But, he was a real nice guy anyway. She eventually died from renal failure. My grandfather died much earlier of lung cancer.
WHOA. WHOA. She took care of you from WHEN until 9? I can't understand why you wouldn't know Spanish and her not know English. That's weird. How dare you not know any Spanish? If you really DO have a special place for her in your heart, you'd have learned Spanish by now, Ms. Di. It's not too late. Hit that Rosetta Stone with the quickness. You still have LOTS of time.
You have some balls to accuse me for not having a special place for her in my heart just because I don't know spanish? I DON'T have to know spanish in order to have a special place for her in my heart. I'm not going to make any excuses for not knowing spanish. For anyone that wants to know how we communicated, we communicated through hand signs. It was hard enough trying to learn English and sign language when growing up. Try learning English, Spanish and sign language at same time. I did take Spanish in high school to try improve my Spanish but still it is hard to learn without be able to hear it. I love my grandma and she still loves me even though I don't know spanish.
Interesting topic... 3 of the 4 have passed on... Both of my Grandfathers served in WW2. One ran was born in oklahoma ran away from a abusive dad when he was 11 whom he never saw again. He travled around the country as part of a circus i think he was good at juggling or something like that. He died of lung cancer in 95 interesting that he told all of this to me and my mom when he was on his deathbed nobody in the family knew outside of my grandmother... She died in 02. She was never the same after her husband passed but have I fond memories of her growing up and visting them... My other grandfather passed away this year at 93. I never really talked toim but got close to him the last 5 years or so..He really had some crazy stories in being in the army and travling the world..Sometimes i think my life is so boring by comparison..He was a big baseball fan i recall him telling stories about seeing babe ruth in person which is very cool to me....He was in bad shape toward the end so it was good he went peacefully... One of my last memories of him was this christmas when i went to vist them at a nursing home..The nurses didnt want him to walk but he insisted on it just to show me he could and that's what he did...very proud man My other grandmother who is the only living grandparent is in great shape at 89 walks like 6 miles a day. I really think she can hit 100 unless something unexpected occurs... Good topic had fun writing it.... Random note "in color" by Jamey Johnson is a very cool song reminds me of my grandparents
My grandfather was a relatively wealthy land owner in South Vietnam, which didn't go down well with the Viet Cong. So they tried to kill him several times. The first time they took him away and tied him up in the middle of the jungle leaving him to die. Fortunately he was able to somehow free himself and made it back to safety. Sometime after this event my grandfather thought to himself "f**k communism" and went to work for the Americans, specifically the CIA. I never asked him what he did for the CIA, he rarely talks about it, but I heard he was involved in a lot of counter-intelligence work and was heavily involved with the phoenix program. Since he worked for the Americans he was able to bring his entire family, which included my mom, to the States right before the fall of Saigon. He visited Vietnam a couple years ago for the first time since the war ended and shortly after he left the plane the communist detained him for 3 days. Apparently the communist found his name on some documents at the American Embassy that weren't destroyed when Saigon fell. He played it cool and told his interrogators that if he talked, he could have brought down the government, which implied a lot of the big wigs in the communist party spied for the US during the war. They let him go and left him alone after that. Don't know much about my grandparents on my dads side since they both died in Vietnam.
Dang. Relax. I apologize if to you it came out like that. I didn't mean "you don't love her"... I didn't accuse you of "not trying to learn" or "not knowing it." I now know how you two communicated, but before I didn't... that's why I said "whoa whoa whoa". I don't need balls to tell someone who is Hispanic to learn Spanish. What I said to you wasn't to say you don't love her, but to let you know that you can still do this, while everyone knows that it is difficult to get older folks to learn something, like for her to learn English. You tried in high school, now I know that, so it wasn't fair for me to say you hadn't tried. I didn't know that. Wouldn't you want your kids to grow up knowing how to speak it, anyway, so that they have an edge to get ahead in their professional life? I would. Jeez.
