I called my Grandpa on the phone last week. Partly to share some good news with him, and also to let him know that I had mailed him a package. I talked about my Grandparents in yesterday's post. I wanted to include part of my conversation with my Grandpa in that post, but it was getting long, so I saved it for today.
Sometimes I have a hard time finding interesting things to talk to my Grandpa about. He is computer illiterate and stays home most of the time, while I also stay home most of the time, and there is just not a lot in the way of excitement going on around here. Because of this, my phone calls to Grandpa are sometimes pretty short (10 to 15 minutes) because we run out of things to talk about over the phone.
When I called him last week I was going over recent family events and mentioned that my oldest Sister's Daughter had turned 18, and my Sister had thrown a birthday party for her and rented a roller skating rink for it. Little did I know that this would spark a fairly long conversation about roller skating. Grandpa said that there was a skating rink where he lived when he was young, but that they were too poor to be able to afford to skate. He said that he worked at the rink helping people put their skates on (the old style skates that hooked right onto your shoes) and once the crowd had thinned down he was allowed to skate for free. He also mentioned going home to Kansas after WWII and how the highway there was smooth enough to skate along, and that he tried it out. His Father and Brothers were surprised to drive by and see him skating down the side of the highway. I told Grandpa that he was quite a man of the future back then. Then the conversation turned to roller blades (somehow I thought he wouldn't know what they were) and he mentioned that he had seen them many times at a thrift store he frequents, and that he would love to try a pair out sometime. He just wasn't sure about spending $4.00 on a pair, and he was a little worried about breaking his arm or something.
This conversation opened up a whole new side of my Grandpa to me. He had always been Grandpa to me...a strong man who would always be a soldier in my eyes. A fisherman, a hunter, and someone who loved to tease us when we were kids. I had forgotten that he was once also young, a child even, and that he was fun and adventurous. When you envision your grandparents, who do you see? Now if they are still alive and have all their faculties, try talking to them about how life was when they were younger...does your vision of them change? If they have passed on, I recommend talking to your Parents or Aunts and Uncles and getting some stories about your Grandparents' lives. I know that I will never think of my Grandpa the same now that I have a picture in my head of him roller skating down the highway in Kansas as a young adult.
Sometimes I have a hard time finding interesting things to talk to my Grandpa about. He is computer illiterate and stays home most of the time, while I also stay home most of the time, and there is just not a lot in the way of excitement going on around here. Because of this, my phone calls to Grandpa are sometimes pretty short (10 to 15 minutes) because we run out of things to talk about over the phone.
When I called him last week I was going over recent family events and mentioned that my oldest Sister's Daughter had turned 18, and my Sister had thrown a birthday party for her and rented a roller skating rink for it. Little did I know that this would spark a fairly long conversation about roller skating. Grandpa said that there was a skating rink where he lived when he was young, but that they were too poor to be able to afford to skate. He said that he worked at the rink helping people put their skates on (the old style skates that hooked right onto your shoes) and once the crowd had thinned down he was allowed to skate for free. He also mentioned going home to Kansas after WWII and how the highway there was smooth enough to skate along, and that he tried it out. His Father and Brothers were surprised to drive by and see him skating down the side of the highway. I told Grandpa that he was quite a man of the future back then. Then the conversation turned to roller blades (somehow I thought he wouldn't know what they were) and he mentioned that he had seen them many times at a thrift store he frequents, and that he would love to try a pair out sometime. He just wasn't sure about spending $4.00 on a pair, and he was a little worried about breaking his arm or something.
This conversation opened up a whole new side of my Grandpa to me. He had always been Grandpa to me...a strong man who would always be a soldier in my eyes. A fisherman, a hunter, and someone who loved to tease us when we were kids. I had forgotten that he was once also young, a child even, and that he was fun and adventurous. When you envision your grandparents, who do you see? Now if they are still alive and have all their faculties, try talking to them about how life was when they were younger...does your vision of them change? If they have passed on, I recommend talking to your Parents or Aunts and Uncles and getting some stories about your Grandparents' lives. I know that I will never think of my Grandpa the same now that I have a picture in my head of him roller skating down the highway in Kansas as a young adult.
