Day Thirty Five

Readers, this is my Grandpa:

I know him as the loving grandpa who came to all of our sporting events and concerts, took tons of pictures (all of them posed, no candids) and snuck us money for getting good grades and told us not to tell anyone.

Some of my favorite memories growing up were at his summer house in Upstate New York. It's where I used to risk poison ivy to look for deer and snakes and other animals in the woods. It's where my brother, sister and I tried camping outside until a thunderstorm started and we had to move our eight person tent into the living room. It's where we spent every Fourth of July watching the neighbor's (illegal) fireworks.

All of my memories of my grandpa are safe and innocent and cozy. Nothing was ever remotely dangerous or risky when it came to him. If anything, my grandpa is a little overprotective when it comes to his grandkids - he worries endlessly over colds and twisted ankles -  which is why it surprised me to learn that my grandpa was kind of a total badass.

My grandpa served in the US Navy from 1961 to 1965. While he wasn't ever in combat, he was stationed in Okinawa, Japan and worked as a fireman, then a crew leader, then a line truck operator, then a material expediter. In the middle of his time in Okinawa, he was also sent to Kodia, Alaska as a part of an earthquake and tidal wave recovery operation where his crew got Kodia back up and running in one month. 

I never knew that my grandpa had ever left New York State, let alone the country, let alone as part of the military. He seemed so reluctant to travel out to Oregon to visit us, so I never would have thought he'd have made the long flight over to Japan.

He wasn't done with his badassery when he was discharged from the Navy though. After he was done being a sailor, he became a fireman. I remember vaguely hearing a story about him risking his life to save a little kid from a sinkhole, but I didn't remember the story until a few days ago (unfortunately I couldn't find anything about it on the internet, which isn't surprising since it happened before the internet even existed). I also didn't realize how dangerous sinkholes can be at the time.

That's A sinkhole, not THE sinkhole.

My grandpa worked his way up to the position Captain of Terrence Hose Co. #3 in 1968, then became the Chief of the Oceanside Fire Department in 1978.

So what's my point? My point is that old people are cool. You may think that your grandma or grandpa is sweet and docile and, well, old, but you have no idea what cool things they did when they were younger. Chances are, your grandparent is at least 40 to 50 years older than you - that's 40 to 50 years of their life that you didn't know them for. Like I encouraged you all to write someone a letter yesterday, I'm encouraging you today to talk to one of your grandparents or a great grandparent or an aunt or uncle or any relative that you don't really know too much about. You never know what you'll learn about them.

If you have a cool grandparent story, feel free to share it in the comments :)