Why my grandfather hated cigarettes (620 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.73 on 20 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Progr3ss (View user info) at 2007-05-24 22:22:12 EDT
I was thinking about families today and I started thinking about my own specifically.
All fucked up and crazy like everyone else's. (If your family is not then can I please buy them from you? Please?)
But there is one member of the family that I particularly focused in on as I'd never really given it much thought. Grandfathers. I don't sit and think about my family for periods of time, deconstructing the hierarchy and what not, but I do think about things I've done with my family. Memories of holidays, Easters and the like.
This wasn't a scientific, government funded project but basically I've figured out that there are three types of grandfathers.
The first is your garden variety sweet old man that loves puppies, vinegar and gardening. They shower you with gifts and love and you never want to leave their side.
The other type is the reclusive, grouchy resentful grandfather. He doesn't say nothing. Doesn't like doing nothing. And don't touch my collection of boiled peanuts that look like dead prime ministers or I'll kill you until you die.
The third is a mixture of the two. You feel excited to go and see him but that feeling disappears about ten minutes after you've arrived. And there's a faint feeling of love coming from him, but that could be because you are standing next to his Sunday paper. He's not grouchy, but not kind and loving either. Kind of like Hamburglar.
This is the type of grandfather I had. (I know I had two, but I never knew my other grandfather outside of my infant days. Turns out he was a number two type grandfather)
It seems that every so often a piece of information pops up out of the blue about my grandfather that I was unaware of. I was never particularly close to him when he was alive, he seemed like a very closed off sort of person. Sure, he said hello, goodbye Merry Christmas and stop touching yourself, but there was never that feeling of grandfatherness that you'd expect.
The laughter, games in the park and stories of his childhood that made Tom Sawyer sound like a pussy girl that baked cookies for his boyfriends were never there.
Anyways, I already knew that he served in WW2. He fought in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, repelling Japanese forces so as to keep our country free. And it was during his time that he developed his hatred for cigarettes. But I never knew why exactly. Until about a month ago, when my uncle told me.
Apparently his squad would leave the village they were staying in and sit in the jungle in a line at night. The primary reason being that not only would they intercept an advancing line of soldiers but as night raids were common, it was safer to sit in the scrub then be inside a building. Spread out in a line with a three metre space between each soldier was how they spent most nights in beautiful war torn Papua New Guinea.
As they did this night after night, and with the comradery of the Australian troops, he got to know the guys pretty well. Their backgrounds, families, and dreams of life after the war. They also tended to sit in the same positions night after night and so you become close friends with the soldier next to you. But one night, the soldier to his right light a smoke.
And a sniper shot him in the head.
My grandfather then had to sit there until morning with his dead friends decaying body for company. If he had of moved, he would have been shot.
He said that due to the density of the jungle they couldn't just go out and find the snipers position. He would either be long gone by the time they found his hole, or there was more then one. The only option was to wait until morning.
I guess the waiting and fear and hurt at losing a friend made him hate the cigarettes. Can't blame him. I'd be pissed off too. But it's strange because most people hate smoking for the same reason. It kills their friends. But not in the same way.
Then I found out that after the war he was the first (white) person to climb a certain mountain on a certain island near where I grew up. And that he tripped on his way down the mountain and broke his nose when he landed on his face.
Must have been good times.
It's like he had a strange secret life. And that he didn't want anyone to ever find out about it.
User Reviews
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-05-29 11:01:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
NEIL! YOUR BEDROOM'S ON FIRE
Submitted by Abbey (user info) at 2007-05-25 15:20:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Good read.
Don't know how old you are, but many people in the 60+ range have...hmmm...I guess you'd call it hidden stories that are too painful to share. They are what shapes them as a person. It's sad that they don't feel comfortable talking about them as it might make their behaviors more understandable.
Submitted by rob_berg (user info) at 2007-05-25 15:16:54 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Very enjoyable.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2007-05-25 15:13:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
How'd he feel about smokin' crack?
Submitted by MidnightToSix (user info) at 2007-05-25 14:57:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
+2 war story
Submitted by Susie_Derkins (user info) at 2007-05-25 12:28:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by BLITZKREIG_BOB (user info) at 2007-05-25 09:14:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-05-25 09:10:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
.
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-05-25 09:10:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by zwerg (user info) at 2007-05-25 08:52:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I love my grandpa. He was in the Marines and served during the Korean war.
Submitted by czwij (user info) at 2007-05-25 07:27:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
never had a grandpa
rabble, rabble.
hamburgler in this context is worth a +VE
Submitted by Realpolitik (user info) at 2007-05-25 04:23:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
no comment
Submitted by ramirez60 (user info) at 2007-05-25 03:53:31 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-05-25 03:03:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
And don't touch my collection of boiled peanuts that look like dead prime ministers or I'll kill you until you die.
(And lit, not light.)
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2007-05-25 02:29:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Progr3ss (user info) at 2007-05-24 23:50:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Seems as though any army does that. You get injured, they boot you out. I work with a few guys that served and they all have bad knees or backs and were asked to leave.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-05-24 23:15:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of my grandfather's got shot up in North Africa. He lived. Was pretty bitter at the Army for years for drumming him out of the service afterwards. Badass was he.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2007-05-24 23:02:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Wow.
Submitted by lungfish (user info) at 2007-05-24 22:41:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice read.
Submitted by Wildman (user info) at 2007-05-24 22:28:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Goddamn dinks are in the palm trees!