Your Most Disturbing Realizations

[dh66]

...... "for an additional $200, we can provide guaranteed waterproofing for the casket."

I paused, as I didn't remember that coming up for Grandmother's arrangements, then my frugal and a bit caustic upbringing kicked in and I asked "who's going to go down and check on the 'guaranteed' waterproofing." I stared, he stared, I continued staring, he nodded his head slowly up and down and said "then it's 'no' to the waterproofing, next item..."

This story made my day.

My condolences on the loss of your father. I know it's been a good while, but the loss of a parent is still something that sticks with you.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

 

[Fading Fast]

This story made my day.

My condolences on the loss of your father. I know it's been a good while, but the loss of a parent is still something that sticks with you.

Sent from my SM-G900V using Tapatalk

Thank you. Glad you enjoyed the story - real life is always where all the best humor comes from.

My dad was not an easy man at all, but he was a force of nature - you always knew when you were in his presence, even - as was often the case - he said nothing. As you referenced, it was 26 years ago, but I don't think a day goes by that I don't think about him. I learned a lot from him - much of it smart, real life stuff, some of it crazy, "that makes no sense when you get out of our house" stuff.

I wouldn't go through my childhood again for all the money in the world, but I don't engage in the "blame your parents" game.

He was nuts, smart, hard, decent; he had a difficult Depression-Era start to life that shaped him in good and bad ways and that all fell hard on me - you take it all in, try to keep the good and move on as an adult.

I do think he would have loved the "who's going to check" comment only to be followed by five other things I should have done better in the negotiations - he was what he was.

 

[2jakes]

Watching “The Magnificent Seven” (1960)
A favorite growing up.

The realization that most of the actors are now gone.

 

[tonyb]

Watching “The Magnificent Seven” (1960)
A favorite growing up.

The realization that most of the actors are now gone.

I can't watch any favorite movie from as recently as, say, 30 years ago without thinking the same thing.

 

[2jakes]

Friends my age or a little younger than me that are now gone.
And the realization that I’m still here and sometimes wondering why.


I've always been very active in
sports ever since I was young.

Perhaps, I never stopped being a kid.
Who knows!

 

[tonyb]

Most of my closest friends and relatives are gone. That's not overstating the matter. And I'm not yet elderly.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I can't watch any favorite movie from as recently as, say, 30 years ago without thinking the same thing.

I've spent my day off listening to radio programs in which every single person featured is now dead -- music, drama, variety, comedy, news, sports, every single person who's entertained me since I got up this morning is now dead. But if I can still hear them, how dead can they be?

 

[2jakes]

^^^^^
On the other hand, there are some that are still on this earth
which for reasons I will not go into but to say...
it would be nice if they went to another planet.

 

[ChiTownScion]

The thing that always hits me like a fist to the chops is how few World War II vets are still around. These men were my uncles, my teachers, my bosses at a score of jobs, my mentors. I have relied upon their insight and life experiences for decades- and they're no longer here. I miss them every day.

 

[Zombie_61]

On the other hand, there are some that are still on this earth
which for reasons I will not go into but to say...
it would be nice if they went to another planet.

Maybe they're waiting for their Motherships to come and take them home.

 

[2jakes]

Maybe they're waiting for their Motherships to come and take them home.

Regretfully, their flight to “Venus” is over-booked.

 

[Stearmen]

^^^^^
On the other hand, there are some that are still on this earth
which for reasons I will not go into but to say...
it would be nice if they went to another planet.

Hey, Keith says he resents your statement!

 

[tonyb]

I've spent my day off listening to radio programs in which every single person featured is now dead -- music, drama, variety, comedy, news, sports, every single person who's entertained me since I got up this morning is now dead. But if I can still hear them, how dead can they be?

I have often thought how good it would be to have voice recordings of loved ones who are no longer with us. And I wish those folks had stuck around long enough to have left an online legacy, via facebook or forums such as this one.

But then, I do enough rearview window gazing as it is. I have photos, and memories. And a life of my own. I am confident that the departed would wish for me to get some satisfaction from what remains of my own earthly existence, as I wish for those who will survive me. Sure, I'd like to be remembered, and missed, but I'd prefer that such memories would bring a smile.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

When I look at a film like, say, "Intolerance," (1916) I have to think that not only is everybody in it dead now (though Lillian Gish lasted a very long time afterward), but almost everybody in the world who was alive at the time is now dead. Only a tiny handful of centenarians were alive in 1916.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Estimates are that less than 7 per cent of all the human beings who have ever lived are alive now. Humanity's common grave contains about a hundred billion people.

 

[Fading Fast]

The thing that always hits me like a fist to the chops is how few World War II vets are still around. These men were my uncles, my teachers, my bosses at a score of jobs, my mentors. I have relied upon their insight and life experiences for decades- and they're no longer here. I miss them every day.

I understand that. For me, my grandfather was a direct connect to WWI - he was a doughboy in that war and was injured in a gas attack (he did recovered physically).

He never talked to me about this experiences, but the family did and said it profoundly changed him. They say he was always a gentle person - kind, thoughtful, sincere (as a kid I was never afraid of him as I was of several of my relatives) - but they say his optimism and drive were left on the fields on France.

My mom told me once that she asked him about his time in the war and he told her what he experienced / what he saw was so horrible he would never tell her about it. She said, he was visibly upset just saying those few words.

Even though I never talked to him about it and he had kept none of his war paraphernalia, he was WWI to me in a very tangible way.

 

[MisterCairo]

At our church yesterday, we had our Remembrance Sunday service. I'm still in service, deployed twice, and we have one other who's a veteran.

He is a veteran of Korea, and is 85. I have just over ten years of service available if they don't change the compulsory retirement age.

In an entire church congregation, there are exactly two people who have been in uniform.

Fifty years apart.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

I know of two great-grandfathers who fought in the Civil War - one North, one South. My paternal grandfather served in WWI though he didn't manage to get overseas before the war ended. My father and his brother both served in the Army Air Corps in WWII, both served overseas. My brother and I both went to Vietnam, him in the Air Force, me in the Army. Neither of us has children (though I have stepkids) so I guess the family tradition ends with us.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I had a great-great-grandfather who was knifed to death in the street -- in front of a building where I later would live for eight years -- by another man in a dispute over dodging the draft during the Civil War, so I guess that counts for something. My grandfathers were too young for WWI and too old for WWII, my uncle was too young for Korea and too old (and too fat) for Viet Nam, and my father spent his hitch in that Cold War peacetime sweet spot -- too late for Korea, too early for Viet Nam.

But I had a great-uncle who more than made up for all of them. He was in the Merchant Marine, and the tanker he captained was sunk by a U-Boat off the coast of South Africa in 1943. He and eight other crewmen crossed the Atlantic on a life raft piled with cans of dried beef, malted-milk tablets, and a few candy bars, and ended landing on the coast of French Guiana after thirty-nine days at sea.

Captain Earl C. Greenlaw, second from left in the back row.

My brother served in the Army for about five weeks in the late 1980s, but they decided they'd had enough of him and sent him home.

 

[Harp]

My brother and I both went to Vietnam, him in the Air Force, me in the Army. Neither of us has children (though I have stepkids) so I guess the family tradition ends with us.

My dad came back from Korea, married my mother, and started having kids right off the bat. He was settled and happy as husband and father.
I returned and enrolled in college on Vietnam's GI Bill, stayed in academe for a very long time, and put off any prospect of marriage and family.
I haven't any children, but nieces and nephews aplenty. Kinda funny how life works out.