My grandfather passed away yesterday morning at the age of 89. He recently suffered a stroke and was left paralyzed on the right side of his body and unable to speak or swallow.He was a pretty typical grandftaher in some ways; he showed me the basics of car repair on one of his old cars when i was little, my first car was his 78 Malibu on it's third engine, he'd slip $5.00 bills into my pocket when I wasn't looking into my early 30's. His only vice that I am aware of was gambling and that was mostly at OTB where he made daily visits when it was open, he gambled for years off of a "big" win and never let it be a problem to the family finances so it wasn't all that much.
This doesn't have a lot to do with gaming aside from my grandparent's home always being a place where family got together to play games, tons of scrabble and familiar family games but we also ranged far afield and played obscure games and made up our own as well. Back in my early D&D days my uncle used to visit about once a month and my father, uncle and a few work friends of my father's would play D&D with me DMing; during this period my grandfather would play a few times a year in those early days. My Grandpa's D&D chaarcter was a dwarf with a spear, I can't recall the character's name but the figure sat on my grandparent's mantle for years. While my grandpa enjoyed D&D a bit he enjoyed StarFrontiers more the few times we played it together he was a bigger fan of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon than Conan and elves.
A few pictures.
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| Grandpa (in the middle) back in WW2 playing with a scratch built "Japanese Banjo", most of the men in the picture are Japanese Prisoners of War. The Japanese POW's used to gamble with each other for work duty assignemnts such as trash carrying, of barber (can you imagine that Japanese POW's shaving U.S. servicemen with a straight razor?) | |
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| Grandpa dressed up for my Aunt's Wedding in the late 1970's. |
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| Grandpa chatting with a horse. Animals seemed to like the man, birds would land on his hands if he held them out for a bird to perch. |
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Ashes to Ashes. We all have our beginning's and our end. I lucked out with a decent grandpa who certainly contributed to my love of games.
Sorry for your loss. Sounds like a cool dude.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to hear it, but he seemed to have had an interesting life. Cherish the memories.
ReplyDeleteCondolences for your loss. I'm happy you have so many wonderful memories. I think it's awesome that he played and enjoyed Star Frontiers (wow!)! My 86 year old grandmother has never touched an RPG, but she always loved games of the card variety and taught me many over the years (she was an excellent Bridge player).
ReplyDeleteMy condolences. My grandfathers passed away long before there was such thing as rpgs. But they used to play boardgames with me when I was a mini-droid, and I use rulers that one of them used in his profession in making print'n'play games and know that he'd absolutely have understood.
ReplyDeleteMy condolences, and my thanks for your grandfather's service. It's wonderful to hear about the families that bring us joy, even when that joy is couched by sorrow.
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