Talk with your Dad if he is still around, especially if he’s not particularly chatty.
Quote from: habrich on November 13, 2018, 06:15:14 pmMy paternal grandfather was killed by artillery or machine gun fire (accounts vary) in September 1918. He had moved to Canada ten years before, established a farm and law practise in rural Alberta, married my grandmother and had two sons but perceived it as his duty to go back to Europe to fight. My father was just 4 when his father died. In turn, he was 50 when I was born and died of myeloma when I was 25. When I pause to think about it, which I do quite often, I astonishes me how much years have been straddled by just three generations and how tenuous the passing of the baton between us has been.I think this is the most incredible part about such recollections.I know my Great Grandfather, who I knew and listened to his tales, had been a boy at Greenwich school; under the care of an ancient Mariner block Chief (a sinecure in his dotage) who had been born on the Victory and was at Trafalgar.So I knew a man, who knew a man, who was at Trafalgar...Nuts! And somwhere in the middle of all that, came the Crimea, the US Civil war, the Boer War, Boxer rebellion and so many other things that seem so far removed from me and now; but really only happen within a couple of life times.Makes my head spin.
My paternal grandfather was killed by artillery or machine gun fire (accounts vary) in September 1918. He had moved to Canada ten years before, established a farm and law practise in rural Alberta, married my grandmother and had two sons but perceived it as his duty to go back to Europe to fight. My father was just 4 when his father died. In turn, he was 50 when I was born and died of myeloma when I was 25. When I pause to think about it, which I do quite often, I astonishes me how much years have been straddled by just three generations and how tenuous the passing of the baton between us has been.
