re: Guys with Grandpa's still alive

My pawpaw is still alive at 92. I make it a point to try and call him every week or so to talk since we don't live in LC anymore. He loves talking LSU football and baseball, so I make it a point to keep up with what's "going on with the Tigers". Go and visit everytime we go into LC, and during football season I'll go sit and watch a couple LSU games with him whenever we go in, especially the early games (we mostly go in for McNeese games during football season).

He taught me how to fish and hunt. Fished with him until about 4 or 5 years ago when he decided he couldn't do it anymore.

We named our first son after him.

One of mine died when my Mom was just 17 so he was long dead before I came around 12 years later.


My other, on my dad's side just passed last year. 90 years old. I hung around him enough when I was a kid but not so much in high school. In college, though, and now in my professional career I realized what I had and started spending more time with him. Glad I did. Got 5-6 years of good stories before he passed.

I had the opportunity a few years ago to move my family and help out my grandpa.

At least once a week we get lunch as well as get dinner with my family.

It’s nice that my kids get to spend time with him. Wish I had had the opportunity to spend more time with my other grandpa.

One died when i was about 6 the other just before christmas this year.

Would love to have them both back for a while.

Both are dead. My moms' dad died when I was 4 and my dads' dad about 12 years ago. I was close to my grandfather so I still miss him.

One died about 10 years ago. He was the best man I ever knew. I miss him and hate that my children never got to meet him.

The other is still alive and I won’t see him again until his funeral. That is just to make sure he is dead.

My great grandfather owned a Mississippi river boat. My grandmother would travel up and down the Mississippi with him.

She would tell me stories about her life. I was just a snot nosed kid who did not care.

Now she is gone. Now that i am grown, I wished I had listened. Her life was way more interesting than mine.

I missed out on the Grandpa experience, pretty much the Grandma experience as well as the positive Dad experience.
So, when a son came into my life I re-invented our family's Dad role based on what I think would've nurtured me the best. It helped that my son came into this world a pretty rational and thinking human being.
As for the Grandpa role if I ever get to be one I plan to have my grandchildren see their Grandpa getting up every morning and "grabbing my lunch pail" and going to work and loving every minute of it.
We don't have generational family money where the kids don't have to work so they will need to get out and get a job or career if they don't want to live on the street or otherwise in poverty.
I want them to have the experience of seeing their old Grandpa having the time of his life going to work so that it may instill in them a positive outlook on going to work everyday.
In any case I really can't see how a person drags themselves to a job every day and working for 35 years for the sole purpose of being able to tell people they're retired.
That's 35 of the most prime years of a person's life wasted making themselves do something they'd rather not be doing just so they can possibly make enough money to be able to announce on Facebook that they are now retired.
Life is way too short for that bullshite and you only get one shot at it.

I have one still alive. He's from NOLA and was a jockey. I hang out with him all of the time. It's the best.

They're all gone now but one lived till I was 35 and the other when I was 43. I was blessed to spend time although not as much when they got older since I moved away. Had a great grandfather live till I was 17. A lot of long lifers in my family.