My senior year in high school I lived with my paternal grandparents because I really couldn't stand the thought of trying to live out my senior year living with either of my stepparents.
My grandparents owned a small farm, and when I got there, I was expected to do chores and contribute. I got there right after school got out for the summer in May 1994.
Not long after I moved in, it was time to take the cows from the wintering pasture (our farm) up to a pasture that my grandpa and a friend of his rented from the BLM for summer grazing. So we had a load of cows, and my grandpa's friend had a load of cows.
We got up there, and right when we got there, we saw a cow in trouble. She was in labor, but things weren't going well. I didn't know anything about cows, but my grandpa determined that the calf was being born breech (head first). And it was stuck.
Well, I had long arms, so I had the job of pushing the calf back up the birth canal between contractions, turning it, and pulling it back out. That didn't work, so I just pulled it out. The calf had died at this point, but the cow's life was saved, so it wasn't a complete loss.
Just about the time the cow was finished eating the afterbirth (which is a sound I'll never forget), the wife of my grandpa's friend came driving up. (This was in the days before cell phones, btw).
"I was so worried! You said you'd be back in two hours and it's been six hours! I thought you had gotten in a wreck or there was some kind of emergency!"
We explained what happened and she repeated the above refrain about five times while we were telling the story.
So we get in the truck, and as we're driving back, my grandpa says, "Listen, Jeremy. She has always been like that, and it's ridiculous. That shit needs to be stopped early in a marriage, or it will ruin you. This is what you do. Right after you get married, say you're going somewhere. Doesn't matter where. Tell her you'll be gone for an hour. Come back in three. Don't apologize. Don't explain. If she asks, just say, "it took longer than I expected." Do this half a dozen times in the first six months of your marriage, and you won't have to put up with the bullshit you just saw. You're a man, and you don't need to be on a goddamn leash."
I miss you, Grandpa.
Your grandpa sounds like a legend
That means a lot to me. Thank you. He was a tank commander in the Korean War. He trained race horses, made his own wine and beer, drank whiskey all day every day, and had fists the size of a grapefruit. He had a sixth grade education, but could do trigonometry and could rebuild an engine by himself. It was an honor to get my first lessons on being a TRP man from him. He wasn't a perfect man, but there's no question that he was a man's man.
I'm starting to notice that our grandfathers and great-grandfathers are the only men a lot of us admire. Mine fought in WW2 at the battle of Normandy. Didn't take shit from anyone his entire life. I bet our grandfathers would have got along.
EDIT: By the way, I guess I was right, he was a legend.
That's an interesting point about our grandfather's generation. You had to take responsibility for your own life at a very early age back then. The Depression showed them that the world did not give a fuck whether you lived or died, so if you want to live, you better learn to handle your own shit. We have been coddled more and more ever since.
This x1000.
The Depression plus the second World War made a generation of men (and women) our country hasn't seen in a long time. That seed of hardness is in all of us, only waiting for adversity to make it grow. They rose to the task, and we (or successive generation) will rise to the task should tough times like those ever come around again.
Well to be fair he takes some shit from his wife but that was expected back in the day and he totally knew how to fix it. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers were probably the last generation of men and manly men.
I always lament the fact that we as a society have gotten more and more overprotective of kids. I have to suspect it's the fact that we've gone from a society where like 5-6+ kids was the norm (lots of kids were 'free' labor for family farms back in the day) to a society where 2-3 kids was the norm to a society where 0-1 kids is rapidly becoming the norm. We are suffering from a psychological putting all our eggs in one basket.
I mean my generation (mid -30's now) we were somewhat lucky. We had the chance to explore as long as we were with our friends (we'd get 3-4 of us driving around on our bicycles all over the neighborhood.). We had some boundaries but being in a suburb they were rather large. We weren't to cross the railroad tracks or any of the major busy streets without permission and the only places to go were a large park with baseball fields and the mall.
I like your description. I'm not quite as old as you are, but I feel as if our youths were cut from the same cloth, as it were.
I totally agree with what you said about boundaries and growing up in the suburbs (I did, too). For us, it was me and about 3-5 other similarly aged neighborhood kids who would ride our bikes all over the place to the pool/country club where we all belonged, or just down random streets in the adjoining neighborhoods to explore (or, really, to try to 'randomly pass by' girls' houses and see if they were maybe home). Or, even better, we'd go in the 100+ acres of undeveloped woods behind my house and have paintball wars. I distinctly remember when all of us had finished our paintball match and decided to climb all the way up to the top of the abandoned water tower out there in the middle of those damn woods. Hell, other great times involved my Dad helping us all build homemade ramps to jump our bikes and skateboards.
I'm rambling, but I think what you're touching on is the concept of what is referred to as 'free-range children', or, as you and I called it growing up, "being a regular boy." Sadly, that seems not to be the norm anymore. Sure, I didn't spend my summers the way my Dad did -- at his aunt's family's farm in Virginia wringing chickens' necks so they'd have something to eat for dinner and helping the (TRIGGER WARNING: "racism" /sarcasm) sharecroppers pick cotton. But, at least I had a childhood where I got hurt from doing dumb shit on my bike, came home bruised up from epic paintball wars, had to run all the way out of the woods to my best friend's house to explain to his Mom that he had broken his arm out in the woods (twice!), and crossed my fingers and hoped that I wouldn't be punished for not coming home after the sun went down.
TL;DR - Free-range childhood is the best.
Yeah problem with that is... it only works when you have other parents that do the same thing.
A lone free-range kid is easy pickings in a world filled with many dangers. However a group of 2-5+ kids. Not so much.
At 94 years old, my grandpa spotted a woman being robbed. He walked without hesitation to the 3 young guys who were robbing her and made them go away. My dad is a wimpy blue pill beta buck who doesn't even dare to contradict my mother anymore. I mean, you may be right by saying that our grandfathers were probably the last generation of manly men.
Honestly I think a lot of it is that their lives are just far enough removed from ours that we romanticize it. We see our dads putting up with things every day, but we don't generally have that level of contact with a grandparent. That and they can fix cars because cars were pretty simple back in the day. I know people are gonna down vote this, but our grandparents lived in the generation where being a hard working beta was still a successfully rewarded role in society.
My paternal grandfather: Army boxing team, WW2 in Europe, Teller's mathematician on the fusion bomb project, math professor at Berkeley, found a Silver Star when he died, never talked to anybody. I really really wish I had known him. My father... had some spunk early on but worn to the ground, alcoholic.
I admire the hell out of my father. There's lots of reasons, but the main one is that he doesn't quit on a problem until it's solved.
I'm pretty sure he's a mechanical genius.
My grandfathers died on the young side - 60's. It's funny to hear my dad speak of his father because he makes it sound like he forgot more than my dad ever knew. If that's the case, grandpa must have had a damn space program in his garage he put together as a hobby.
That's goddamnright, my grand father is fucking awesome. Went to war at 20, left a leg there, was left to die in a campaign hospital, survived, got back to his home country, had a family, became a successful banker, build half of his house in the country, and still climb in tree with a chainsaw at nearly 80 with only one good leg... He never give a fuck about anything, and go his own way.
I think my dad turned out alright. He is an immigrant though.
I didn't even have a father, let alone a grandfather or a great grandfather. I'm jealous.
This is like the coolest sounding eulogy of all time.
To quote Hamlet speaking of his own father: "He was a man"
You know..this isn't the first time i've heard someone refer to their grandpa in this same context. Very little education, but was sufficient in enough math/logic to be a contributing member of society Literate.. Knew how to fix things, wasn't a faggot/democrat, etc. Think about this sentence for a moment..a man with a 6th grade education could do math and most high school students today cannot. In the year 2014, where nearly everyone has all human knowledge in their pockets via a smartphone.
Do you have any idea how many kids today graduate high school and know next to nothing. Like..reading on a 6th grade level in America in the year 2014 is probably equivalent to reading on a 3rd grade level in the early 1930s. The dumbing down of the general public is not a conspiracy theory, it was done on purpose.
If jeremyfirth is your name, get a new username. Don't get doxxed by the srs thugs.
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I like to tell mine "11:18" or "2:36" or other oddly specific times for no reason.
Do you show up exactly at the time you said you will?
I was doing the same thing with one girlfriend at the begging of our relationship. It was driving her crazy, always there at the exact time I said I would be there, not a minute early or late.
We were together for two weeks when I told her it was an experiment and that in my normal behavior I do not keep track of time at all. No watch, no mobile phone...
She loved the relaxed, unpredictable and never on time me much more. Until I didn't call or see her for 3 days and she thought I was dead or dumped her without saying a word, while I was just too immersed in a project and didn't even realize that much time passed and that it meant so much to her..
Fuck no. If I say 1:18 or 4:34 I will still get in the door approximately 30 seconds after the kickstand goes down on the driveway. I am fortunate enough to not have an occupation which requires me to adhere to a strict schedule; I won't do it at home either.
That being said, I don't disrespect her and just go do whatever the fuck I want. But if I'm riding home from work and end up taking some random detour because that's the shit that happens on a motorcycle, then fuck it, I do it, I'm not gonna skip it thinking my wife will lecture me or some shit.
I just tell my wife that I'll be home when I'm done.
While, yes, you shouldn't be on a leash 24/7, in the age of cell phones this is stupid. EVERYONE knows that women worry but if you're expected to be on time for something don't pull this shit. Let your wife/serious girlfriend know you're going to be late for dinner, date night, some relatives party, whatever. Don't make your family needlessly worry or wait for dinner.
Respect to your grandpa.
I'd add that you should probably start doing this way before you're married. Nowadays just because you're in a relationship women think they have you in some kind of stranglehold. I'd say it's a good idea to set that precedent before you're stuck in a legal stranglehold (AKA: marriage)
Doing it early in an LTR is a good way to weed out controlling women. You shouldn't wait until marriage to curb bad behaviors or deal with people who act that way.
That sounds like amazing advice. Kudos to your grandpa, I'm definitely going to have to do that.
Yeah, set a precedent but with actions rather than words "this is how it's gonna be"
My grandfather was also a WWII vet. He flew the B-17 Bomber. He told me a story about his most memorable experience, when he went on a mission to bomb a target in Germany.
"They threw everything up in the air at us including the kitchen sink. It was hell up there. I made it though the first pass but I missed the damn target. Command wanted to abort, but I knew these B-17's could take a lot of punishment and still stay in the air. So I turned around made a second pass and blasted it. My Fort (bomber's nickname) was Swiss cheese but I made it home. They gave me the Distinguished Flying Cross for it."
He was an amazing guy. Tough as nails, led and loved his family.
It doesn't bother me to be honest, my lady gets worried and just likes to make sure I'm safe. She doesn't intrude on what I'm doing or freak when I don't come back dead on time.
What do you do when your wife starts doing the same thing?
If my wife is going out and I bother to ask when she's coming back, a general idea is sufficient. Mostly I ask if I want to know if she'll be making dinner or if I'll be improvising.
By improvising I mean eating at the club. That drives her up a wall because she thinks it makes her look like a bad wife. Which makes it marginally more satisfying when I do have to improvise.
So when she's not around to cook you dinner, you purposely do something that makes her upset... that sounds healthy.
so there was something going on between your grandpa and his friend's wife?
So, how do you use this advice when everyone has cell-phones and a simple text only takes 30 secs?
The point of the advice is this, and it's timeless: you don't need permission. You don't need to explain. You don't need to say anything. Do. Your. Thing. You are a man, living life. And no one else needs to be kept apprised of your every move. Not your government, not your neighbor, not the cops, not your priest, not your wife. You answer to you. Period.
That doesn't change with cell phones. You are not obligated to answer the phone every time it rings. You are not obligated to answer every text. If you respond to every text immediately, you're living a boring life doing boring things that you can do while holding a phone in your hand.
How does one send a text when you are shoulder-deep in a cow's uterus pulling a dead calf out. "Stuck in cow's pussy lol. Will b late haha." Come on, man.
I'm saying live your life. Go out. Be late. You don't owe anyone an explanation for coming and going. You want dinner? Be home at dinner time. You're out, and you're hungry? Buy some goddamn food and eat. Maybe your SO will get tired of cooking for you. Who cares? You can cook, right? Take responsibility for yourself, and don't apologize for living an interesting life.
How are you supposed to text if you're climbing a mountain? Were you aware that there are still places in the world where cell phones don't work? You should find some. It's liberating. It's unbelievable to be on your own. To be untethered. Freedom waits for you. And it starts on a dead battery.
Why are people down voting you?
No idea. Don't really care. You can't save all the starfish.
I do this accidentally. I'm just a late motherfucker, and at 30 have gotten tired of feeling guilty about it.
If you're holding people up or being an inconvenience to them when you're late, then you should be guilty because you fucked up.
Exactly. Being consistently late is just fucked up. Their time is just as valuable as yours hammertime999.
Your grandpa sounds like a pretty cool guy.
My grandfather, when asked where he goes, would always answer with "to tiflis" (a city in Georgia, 500km from the Turkish border). He would say that whenever he was asked that question. Today, I am doing the same.
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I realized that after I wrote it. Thank you for setting the record straight.
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Ignore the behavior you don't like. Reward the behavior you like.
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Well, it depends on the relationship. If I understand you correctly, this is your grandmother, right? So you call your grandma out of the blue. You send her a card or a present. You plant flowers in her yard for her. You weed for her. I don't know your grandmother, but it sounds like at first you'll be doing more ignoring than rewarding. If she starts acting up, don't try to reason with her or even argue with her. Just ignore her. She'll settle down.
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Provoking her intentionally is not alpha. That's a sign of insecurity. Teasing is one thing. That's cocky funny. But provoking someone into an argument is generally just an insecure person trying to throw their weight around. Remember: amused mastery.
Dude, your granpa was cool as shit.
You grandpa was a good man, a real man. Most men born before the 1960's were good men and real men who understood their women and dealt with them calmly, and stoically with authority.
Today with the manosphere we are reviving and concentrating the same ancient knowledge. For him who has ears let him hear.
We know the response to constant Shit Tests like this. Your grandpa knew enough but only about establishing boundaries and frame. Today we know about agree and amplify and other techniques to explode these shit tests.
This is actually a really good post for once. Some good advice there.
Grandpa embodied and taught frame control before it became vernacular.
Props to that man.
I wish I knew my maternal grandfather. He was a rancher/redeo man himself.
From what I hear of him, he would have been a great role-model, not unlike your own.
Ya thanks for the advice. I will definitely keep this in mind when I get into a relationship.
+1000 Grandpa points
Thank you for sharing and props to the guys commenting and sharing experience and stories about their grandpas. It's cool, I wish I knew mine. Both died pretty early on, my father and I missed out on these great life lessons.
Fucking love your grandpa man. R.I.P.
"Don't apologize. Don’t explain." Should be the official TRP motto.
I've always tried to go with "Never complain. Never explain." Works in business, relationships--most areas of life, really. Sometimes you do need to apologize.
i love this subreddit
When it comes to someone shit talking to you, the best thing is to agree and amplify, or just ignore it. Trying to say, "I don't like that. Please stop." just fuels the flame and puts you outside the group. Don't take yourself seriously and especially don't take what they say personally or seriously. Pretend they're just some little kids on the playground and you're a teacher. They're trying to rile you.
Omg my best friend parents are like that. His dad leaves and just says im gonna go do stuff, all the time. And his mom doesnt care one bit.
PS:I highly doubt hes into illegal stuff or addicted, but you never know.
Immediately after? After vows, ceremomy, wedding, consummation? It might be difficult to get away from all that. Add to the fact you wouldn't want to leave such a situation in the first place.
I think the the advice should be followed in the first week of marriage ...not right after.
You're quite thick, aren't ya?
Explain how I'm thick. That I don't understand or is there something I'm failing to see.
The woman used to marry virgin on that time. So you have to think about the advice and apply on our timeline.
Manliest man a farmer is