re: Been missing my grandparents lately…

Sadly, I was never close with either of my grandfathers. One was an alcoholic and divorced from my grandmother and out of the picture, and died in the 90s. And the other I have a few memories of, but he died when I was like 4 or 5, and I didn't spend much time with him too much or too closely.

My maternal grandmother I have tons of memories of, but not very intimately...mostly just remember her sitting her her chair watching Murder, She Wrote. She died in 2001-ish.

But my paternal grandmother, I have tons of intimate memories with her of her sitting on her floor playing games with me like Pick-Up Stix and Hi Ho Cherry O. And playing in her yard. And going to football games with her. And even as an adult, just visiting her and sitting and chatting for hours on end. She's 99 and turning 100 this month, and is still in pretty good health too. Of all my grandparents, she is the one that I will handle VERY poorly when she passes. It's gonna kill me.

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I spent half of my childhood/early teen years on a tractor.

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same, my dad, unwittingly or intentionally had a way of making it seem like a privilege to use tools and would tell me about them, show me how to use them properly, before long he had me doing everything

I have one grandpa left, and my other grandpa died years before I was born. I really need to go visit that dude.

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I really need to go visit that dude.

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do it, once they're gone they're gone, baw

I've always been much closer to my maternal grandparents than my dad's parents.

My maternal grandparents passed over 15 years ago and I think about them often, how much I miss family gatherings at their house, my grandfather taking me fishing and e to my first LSU game, how I wish they could've met my wife and two kids, they'd have loved them.

Contrast to my dad's parents who never really seemed to care about us, my grandmother passed about a year ago, at her funeral was the first time our daughter was ever in her presence. I'm not even certain some of our family members are even aware our second kid was born a few weeks ago. It's a totally different family dynamic and I hate that.

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same, my dad, unwittingly or intentionally had a way of making it seem like a privilege to use tools and would tell me about them, show me how to use them properly, before long he had me doing everything

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My paw paw had me on that tractor when I was like 8 yrs old

Or walking behind that old Gravely from like the 1940s with the tiller attachment getting the garden ready. Damn thing was a workout

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Or walking behind that old Gravely from like the 1940s with the tiller attachment getting the garden ready. Damn thing was a workout

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That looks like a potential death trap for a smaller, lighter person. I can sympathize, as I was charged with operating a very crappy version of one of these when I was about that age:



That thing was at least 15 years old back in the 1990s. And I couldn't quite reach the brake peddle too well, and I was nearly hopeless in operating any of the levers that seemed to be on the verge of rusting into place. And I liked to go top speed at all times. And the few safety features on this 1970s era beast were definitely overridden by some jimmy-rigged contraption. And wasps loved to set up nests under the hood to surprise me when I opened it, which was remedied by my grandfather pouring gasoline on the nests. Surprised this thing never exploded.

But the yard work eventually got done with only a few collisions. I think I got it stuck on a barbed wire fence once and bent the blades when I ran over rebar somewhere. And I used to run over the baseballs I'd leave in the yard, which would occasionally get launched into a window and at least once into my brother.

Kind of wish we still had that old tractor. It eventually got replaced and was sold for scrap after thousands of hours of a complete idiot (me) using it. It didn't work well by then. As stupid as it sounds, a restored one would be a time capsule for me. Sitting on one of them would instantly transport me back to my childhood chores.

I was rocking my newborn son the other night and thinking about my late grandmother. She was a judgmental old lady who hated everyone in the world but me and my cousin with Downs Syndrome. I loved nothing more than spending time with her and listening to her gossip. She would have spoiled the hell out of this little kid if he had ever had the chance to meet her.

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I spent many summers at my grandparents.

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I would spend as much time on the farm as possible. Used to stay up with grandma listening to Arkansas Razorback games on the radio, she was a huge fan. She has a great grandson who pitched against Arkansas in a baseball game last year, too bad she wasnt around to see it.