Dad [[when asked a question he couldn't answer): How long is a piece of string?
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Dad [[when asked a question he couldn't answer): How long is a piece of string?
Me: Let's go to Burger King!
Dad: You got Burger King money?
My brother Robert and I at the barber shop at ages 6 and 8 respectively "take a little from the sides and a little from the top......."
My Dad "Skin 'em and I'll be back in a hour". LOL
My mother: "Oh so you think I'm playing? I am sending you to stay with your grandparents this summer....."
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I take it that that was a threat to get you "back in line". Sounds like she knew you would hate being away from your friends. Did your grandparents live out in the countryside [[farm or small town) where it would be boring for you, or in another city?
Robb that was exactly right! My friends were everything back then.....BUT my grandparents were really my very best friends, they were awesome! My mother didn't view them the same way we kids did. My Grandma baked desserts, cookies, cakes, pies, puddings everyday! My Grandpa was retired and took me everywhere with him and he loved kids. He made sure you had some kind of bike, dog, fishing rod whatever, oh and the chance to ride horses when I stayed with him. Yes my grandparents lived in a small, rural country town. I got to know all the kids in their town. I was a city kid from birth but loved going out to the country. To me it was like going to summer camp! LOL! So my mother's threats did not possibly scare me like the one's where she would tell my father on me.
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I grew up mostly living in the same house with my father's parents, but when we weren't there [[almost 4 months out of each year), we were staying with my mother's parents. So, all 4 of my grandparents were like 2 more sets of parents to me. I had two homes. So, no one could threaten me with "banishment" to my grandparents' homes. But, I was pretty well behaved and got good grades, and was an integral worker in my father's store, and was working on a sub career that would result in my paying my own way through university with scholarships. So my parents would never have had to threaten me, anyway. As it was I ended up paying my own way through university. The only thing my parents could ever hold against me is not giving them any grandchildren or great grandchildren. Luckily, my sisters did that.
Robb, that is excellent! Don't get me wrong. We were not like Juvenile Delinquents[[I've seen the inside of NYC's Juvenile Justice Centers aka Kiddie Prisons and those kids have murdered their own parents). We were more mischievous especially my older brother Robert. He would follow or mimic older kids and I would follow him into every kind of trouble a small kid could get into back in the sixties LOL! We were both very good students. Always earning A's and B's.
I don't how it would have worked out for us if my grandparents on either side had lived with us. Both of my parents believed in corporal punishment..........none of my grandparents did especially in regards to their grandkids. They would not allow it and that would have caused all types of problems.
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Well, I did get mostly A's and a few B's [[or their equivalent number grades). But, I wasn't exactly Little Lord Fauntleroy. I ditched school a few times, got in about 4-5 "official" fights [[fights in school, in which we got caught and stopped by a teacher). But most fights started in school were held in alleys or fields, away from school [[and there were plenty of those that my parents never found out about). I said those cut lips, bruises and black eyes happened in my hockey games[[some did). I carried a switchblade to junior high school every day, as The Ukrainian boys used to jump us.
My father paddled my rear end a few times when I was little. But, he never hit me after I was 8 or so. He figured that once a kid was 8 or 9, he can understand things, and then can have consequences that "hit him where it hurts" if behaving badly, or to learn a lesson. Being grounded for a weekend or two was used. But, my parents couldn't take away my "allowance" or things they normally bought for me, because I didn't get an allowance nor things bought for me, because I was independently wealthy from working in my father's store and earning good money. I worked hard and was worth my salary.
My mother tried to hit me with a broom once, after drinking heavily, when I was 16. But, I ducked [[dodged) and her swing missed, and she wrenched her back. She never tried to strike me again. I didn't really do anything to warrant that. She claimed I "talked back to her". But I was just saying what needed to be said, and not rude or disrespectful, at all. She was too messed up to think straight. Thank goodness she never did that again.
My parents were pretty mild when it came to disciplining their children. Paddling the fanny of kids when they are little is nothing compared what the schools did. In elementary school, our principal [[a big, strong man) took off his belt, and whipped kids who were sent to him. He'd go to prison if he did that now. Teachers whacked you on the knuckles if you talked out of turn, laughed, chewed gum in class, or got up and walked in the room without permission. In junior high school we had an ex CFL lineman for the "swatman". He'd hit the boys in the rear end various numbers of "swats" for various offences, with a wood paddle-ball paddle. There were 4 holes drilled in it to avoid wind resistance, so he could swing it at you faster. You couldn't sit down for a week after getting swatted by him, unless you had a big, plush pillow strapped to your rear. :eek: I think I already told you all about my sister's kindergarten teacher, who used to put the transgressing boys under her grand piano, and bang down hard on the keys [[apparently trying to break their ear drums?). And after that, they had to sit in the girls' walk-in "doll house", and listen to the girls laugh at them for 10 minutes at a time. Needless to say she thought boys were "little devils". Another sadist who would have been fired and sued for millions in today's times, and perhaps serve a short prison term as well. Some things were tougher back when I was a kid. So, I one old geezer that wouldn't claim that "EVERYTHING" was better back in "The Good Old Days". :)
I think a lot of times we look back and remember things as being better then than now. Somethings were better then like Saturday morning cartoons [[they no longer produce and air cartoons on Saturdays in the U.S.). When it comes to physical discipline in the school, it was on the bad side back then but it taught you to be responsible or face the consequences. Today and maybe perhaps the last 25 years there has been a ban in place for paddling/spanking children in schools and results have been mostly disastrous overall. Kids do not respect authority today.
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I didn't mean it is necessarily better for society. Only better for the mischievous little fairly innocent kids' rear ends. No, I don't think that the current violence and disrespect and laziness and lack of work ethic in American schools is a good thing.
Remember when you would go to your auntie's house and she would always make you eat something,and i mean a full sized plate,and you didn't have the heart to tell her that your other six aunts just feed you too.
SON,WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NOTE THE TEACHER SEND FOR ME TO READ?[of course me being the genius that I was I didn't think that the teacher called mom].
If i made the excuse to my dad that I had done something wrong by accident, he would say, "yes, accidentally on purpose".
Well, Dad has graduated to full grumpy old man status. If I take an extra week to cut my hair, he reminds me by saying "Looks like Jerry's getting taller. He's grown right through his hair!"
My dad is fantastic. He's gone through the ringer physically in the last few years. He went from bowling every week in a league to barely being able to walk in the span of months. Since then, he's had both knees and hips replaced and a heart bypass. It's a struggle but he grits his teeth and soldiers through. He is rude as heck and has absolutely no filter. If he thinks it, he says it. But that's cool; he can be as grumpy as he wants to be. I thank God that my Pops was and remains the best father that I ever met. I feel sad for people [[especially men) who didn't have a father to teach them the lessons that I learned from my dad.
That's fantastic jerry god bless him.
My dad also said to me that if anyone picked a fight with me that I should hit them twice as hard as they hit me. That was good advice. No one ever picked on me more than once.
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I can't complain, as I had my father until a about a year and a half ago, till age 94. He had still been working 3-4 days a week in his Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise and playing golf 2 of the 3 other days. He had nothing wrong with him physically, dying peacefully in his sleep, 2 days after getting a clean bill of health on his physical. We had planned for me to take him to the driving range on Saturday [[the day after he actually died). He wouldn't take me onto a public course for fear I'd hold up other players [[by shooting 6 to 8 on every hole). My sister told him he was "too old" to drive a car 25 miles each day to work, and 15-20 miles each way to play golf. So she convinced him to stop working. He and my uncle sold the franchise, and he sold his car, and six months later he was literally "bored to death". He lost interest in everything, and decided he was ready to "go lie under a tree", like an old dog, and go to sleep.
Anyway, he had a great life, and I was lucky to have him around all the way to age 70. My mother died at 89, 5 years earlier. And, I had my father's parents until their ages of 97 and 94, and my mother's parents till age of 94 and 88. So, I had a lot of wisdom to tap into for what will end up as most of my life. Nice to not have to feel like an orphan until after 70. Being the eldest child, I am now the "old geezer", but we've still got 2 of my father's sisters with us, at ages 97 and 95.
You're from a great line, robb_k. I hope you continue the streak of long and full lives.
Wow, robb_k, longevity is in your genes! Both my parents and all their siblings are gone now, but amazingly we have a great-uncle still with us, still stepping lively at 100 years of age!
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Yes, I should be around for another 25-30 years, and still being active, if I follow in my father's footsteps, and don't walk in front of a moving bus, tram or train! :cool:
Hey robb,darn right you are and afterwards will you donate your body to da hood so we can stuff it and learn from your wisdom...[i got a nice place picked out over in the park]!!
LITTLE BOYFRIENDS - Dad: "He can't even pee straight."
STUBBORNESS - Mom: "Sugar aint sweet til you taste it."
Oh, how I love and miss them so much!!!!
Mom-son go to the corner store and get a loaf of bread.
Hey, arr&bee, when my grandma used to send my dad to the store as a kid, she'd tell him, "If you lose my change, don't come back here, don't go nowhere else, and don't stay there." :D
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Ha! Ha! My Mom used to send me, as a young kid, to the tobacconist or liquor store with a note, to buy a carton or two of cigarettes. She smoked 3 packs a day. I never took more than 2 or 3 puffs of a cigarette, and only did that twice or 3 times when the boys were first trying them. IDID try to smoke a cigar at 4 years old [[but my practical joking uncle deliberately didn't tell me NOT to inhale it, like a cigarette!). THAT horrible experience, of turning green and almost choking to death probably was the reason I never smoked. I'm surprised that my mother didn't ask me to buy her vodka at 8 years old, with a note! :cool:
Mom[during my high school years]...son you don't seem to have much homework.
You hit the nail on the head, Marv! We transplanted from The Bronx to ATL in the '70's. And the grandparents lived in the 'burbs. Their refrigerator was so well-stocked, that whenever you wanted something, you had to lean against the door. Then, ever so slowly reach one hand in. You couldn't really choose anything - there was soooooo much food -but hope you grab something good! The freezer? They had two!!! One for meats and another back up outside near the laundry room!! You thought they were "feeding an army!"
Honorable mentions: "Stop running with that [[fill in your fave) before you put someone's eye out!!"
"Boy! You eat like you got a tapeworm!"
Bonus cuts: "Keep eating that watermelon, and one's gonna grow in your stomach!"
Mocking crippled persons - " You're gonna wake up tomorrow just like that! Keep it up!