Lsura: Seems neither one of us can manage the codes today 
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- Tamerlane
Paternal Grandfather - General Handyman, locksmith for the County of Santa Clara and “retired” as a subsistence farmer.
Maternal Grandfather - flew recon missions over Japanese held territories during WWII, travelling saleman, paving contractor.
Paternal Grandfather: Owned a grocery.
Maternal Grandfather: Owned a restaurant until WWII, then became a security guard in a factory. He stayed there until he retired.
my Paternal grandfather transported japanese (I think?) during WWII. he ( I remember he told me this last night) washed cars, also, before the war for 99¢ a car.after the war he was a chief exec for Pullman Standard.
my Maternal grandfather was in the army (airforce?) and then he transferred to NASA to become an Aerospace Engineer
Maternal grandfather by birth was in the Navy in WWII; got conked in the head with the hatch of a submarine; was never quite right after that. Left my grandma when my mom was small, went and died in some insane asylum somewhere.
The guy my mom called Daddy, Pop-pop Johnson, was a trucker.
My dad’s dad was a trucker, too.
My dad’s a trucker.
I’ll probably be a trucker, at least for a summer or two once I’m old enough to get my CDL.
It’s in the blood. 
I never knew any of my grandfathers; Pop-pop and dad’s dad died when I was small.
One was a carpenter, one was an Engineering Director at General Motors.
My dad’s dad, I have utterly no idea about. It’s the weirdest thing, because I grew up in a relatively normal nuclear family, Mom and Dad and Sis and I and two cats - but! my paternal grandparents both died before I was born and it’s like there was some big secret about them, because they were NEVER SPOKEN OF. I never realized how odd it was until I was much older.
Mom’s mom, OTOH, was quite cool. (Technically, her uncle - she was adopted) Leonard “Doc” Ryker started out as a company bugler in the Army, eventually attaining the rank of Sergeant, and also being one of the early people in the US to learn the saxophone. He put together a small band with some other guys in his company, which lasted well after his enlistment. He later went on to become a reasonably famous musician in the early NYC jazz scene, being one of the only permanent members of the Jean Goldkette Orchestra, wherein he played with bigger names like Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, Bix Beiderbecke, and Frankie Trumbauer. Actually, my favorite part of that story is that the Dorsey brothers only became bigger names afterwards - in the Jean Goldkette days, they played second and third sax to my granddad’s first sax. Cool! After several years in the big band business, he cut down to private tutoring. When all his pupils went off to WWII, he joined the Sperry Gyroscope company until retirement.
- Dave
D’oh! that should be “Mom’s dad.”
And I previewed and everything!
Dad’s father was a steelworker (upstate New York).
Mom’s father was a railroad engineer (central Pennsylvania).
Both were World War I veterans (Army, I think).
Maternal: Dairy farmer
Paternal: Neon-sign maker and sheetmetal worker
Isn’t it Hinckley the buzzards come back to?
My mother’s father was a machinist for the 3M Company, but he really wanted to be a baker, like his father and brothers were. The baker thing never worked out, though.
My father’s father worked as a coal miner from the age of 11 until he was killed by a combination of gravity and a very large piece of slate, when he was 56. That was 15 years before I was born.
I never knew my paternal grandfather as he died before I was born, when my dad was seven years old. He was a Lutheran minister during his adult life.
My maternal grandfather did several things, most connected with machinery. He came from a family of farmers of German heritage and his folks wouldn’t let him go to school past the eigth grade because they said he was going to be a farmer too and didn’t need more education than that. So in 1918, as soon as he was legal, he went to Kansas City and enrolled in an auto mechanics school. Only one of his brothers who DIDN’T become a farmer!!! Married my grandmother, had a garage, worked hard at extra jobs to support his family, finally went to work for Santa Fe and retired from there. Pretty bare recitation, I wish there was room to tell you what he was really like, not just the jobs he did. He’s been dead for twenty years and I still miss him.
Granddad - mom’s side - Executive - Vice president of Warner and Swazey (sp?), a company that made earth moving machinery (I think). Had servants during the Great Depression.
Granddad - dad’s side - ‘sold dirt by the carload’ I’m assuming that’s a RAILROAD carload. Never heard more than that.
Both of them died well before I was born, I never knew them.
i know my grandfather on my fathers side was an engineer in the british army im WWII, but i don’t know what he did as a civilian.
my grandfather on my mothers side was a chemist who made flavourings for food. during WWII, he was involved in the theoretical work on making the atomic bomb, but he left the program before it got to the practical stage, i think because he was worried about the implications for his health.
Hello all, I’m a newby here and thought that this would be a good place for myfirst post.
Paternal:
He was a coal shooter, he drilled the coal seam and placed dynamite. He also moonshined and bootlegged during hard times. Died of black lung in 1982
Maternal:
WW1 Navy vet. Trained as a geologist after the war, he worked in the petroleum industry in Louisana. Moved to Kentucky and took a position as a KY state mine inspector. His job was to go into a mine after a fatality and document what happened to try and make mining less lethal. Told Many horrific stories that used to mesmerize me for hours. He was murdered in 1981 by a 17 and 18 year old who robbed him hoping for money to buy pot.
Maternal grandfather: A rags-to-riches story. Had basically nothing as a boy, worked most of his life, now is quite wealthy. An influential man (politically) in the state of Alabama; chairperson of a bank, has held many political offices.
Paternal grandfather: A hard, but fair man. Was a farmer and a storeowner. However, what was most interesting to me was the fact that he allowed gypsies to camp around his store, so my dad grew up with gypsies.
Paternal Grandfather – born in New Jersey, moved to Eastern Long Island and started a store. Was interested in science and a patron of the arts, and was friends with Albert Einstein and Benjamin Britten, among others.
Maternal Grandfather – Born in Minsk, moved to the U.S. when he was 14. Became a dentist, and was a pioneer in the development of root canal surgery and the use of film as a teaching tool.
BlueMoonofKentucky, keep on shinin’!
My father worked as a coal shooter’s assistant for about one week. The shooter left him running a drill on a stand; he got lazy and leaned his upper body on the handlebar, and when the drill hung on a rock, the frame rotated and sandwiched his head between the handlebar and the roof of the mine shaft, where it remained until his yells attracted the shooter’s attention. Wisely noting that the coal business was not for him, he quit immediately and never went back in a coal mine for the rest of his life. I always chuckle when I picture the incident in my mind.
City Gent 
Whispers on high, my love said goodbye
It amazes me the number of close calls that happen daily in the mines. Lucky the drill did’nt hurt(or kill) him when it pinned him!
Maternal Grandfather: Born in Athy in Ireland to a wealthy family, he grew up racing greyhounds. He lied to get into the army and at 16 joined the an Irish battalion. He married my grandmother at age 17 against the wishes of his parents. They cut him off because he married well below his station (now married almost 60 years). He served in India during WW2, then was a chef for the American Air Force, then was a salesman, then a chauffeur. He raised 3 kids while his wife was seriously ill in hospital with TB. Now, at the age of 75, he works full-time as a chauffeur for rich and famous people, looks after my nan (who’s blind) and still likes a beer or two. He’s a helluva guy.
**Paternal grandfather:**Born in the 1900s in the north of England, he was an air raid warden in London during WW2. A chartered accountant, he travelled all round Europe and collected camaras, most of which I’ve still got. He taught my father how to develop film, and my father taught me in turn, using much of the same equipment he was taught on. He died in 1987 when I was 8 and I wish I could’ve known him better.
Fran