Anyone else heard this proverb?
If’s true: my grandparents were about 5-10 years younger than I when the calander read ‘1930’.
They got to see the banks closing, and, eventually, the global economy failing.
Anyone taking bets?
I’ve never heard this before, but honestly mostly my grandparents led pretty good lives full of love and happiness. They worked hard but they were never impoverished or anything and they were all born after the depression so they didn’t see all of that stuff. I wouldn’t mind living a similar life to my grandparents, actually.
I get to fight the Germans in North Africa and Italy then, before getting run out of Ireland for fighting “for the British.”
Jolly good.
Going simply on the average lifespan of people born when my grandparents were born…well, I would be dead by now.
Last I checked I haven’t had to flee my home due to pogroms and chaotic civil war, and live in refugees camps for two years and shit jobs so that I don’t starve, before the age I am now, so on that front at least I think I’m doing rather better than my granddad. Other grandparents were fighting the Nazis and getting pregnant (both in and out of wedlock) at my age, so also I think I’m doing rather better than they were - not that getting pregnant at 25 is so rare or indeed awful, but it is something about which I’ve had the choice, unlike my grandmothers (one who was actually pregnant at 19, and had no idea what it meant to be a mother…).
God, I hope not. My grandparents were all born between 1895 and 1910, so they lived through some shit times–the Great Depression, two World Wars. Three lived long enough to see a child die. I’ll pass, thanks.
Well, in that case I’m going to die in a few years in a Nazi labor camp.
Right about now I would have lost all my money in the Great Depression and tried going back to the old country to see if things would be any better there.
They wouldn’t be.
My maternal grandmother graduated college majoring in Greek & Latin, then had an arranged marriage, three children, and was in and out of institutions all her life. Her mother spent most of her life in institutions, dying in onewhen my grandmother was only four.
I don’t think so.
Oh, fuck.
My grandfather lost his entire medical practice and him and Grandma had to flee with three kids across the Pakistan-Indian border when the Partition was set up.
My other set of grandparents I know less about, but they also had to flee - my entire family originates from the Lahore area.
I know you mean in general terms, but I don’t see me having to flee across any borders anytime soon, with Muslims raping & killing Hindus and Hindus killing & raping Muslims in turn.
Well at least I don’t have any kids to cart along!
Good, because I’ve been waiting to finally stick it to those dirty Japs.
Hmmm… well, on the one side, I’ll get to move from town to town, looking for work and always be the last man hired, so the first fired. And if I’m my grandmother, I’m already dead from breast cancer.
On the other side, I get to be at least borderline mentally ill, but have household help and a deep interest in my sorority–and I get to paint (badly). That grandfather worked for the Gment and once stood atop the Washington monument as the cap stone was placed (or so he said). They had money, job security and traveled the world upon retirement. I want to be them–despite the Greek stuff.
Cool! I get to be a spoiled rich boy who lost all his family’s money even before the crash. Then, after having more kids than you can shake a stick at, I’d get to drag my family around Georgia and Florida while I try to find work. WWII hits. It’s a miracle–now I have a job in the shipyard! I can support my family!
Then I die from the results of an industrial accident.
Mother’s father: I have to leave school in the fifth or sixth grade and go to work, delivering the Chicago Tribune from a bicycle. This would be about 1905. Eventually I go into sales, specializing in the supersized decals used in outdoor advertising. I also have something to do with designing the Miller Beer Girl-and-Moon logo.
In spite of a rough start I achieve a comfortable level of material security and we were fortunate enough to be on the giving end during the Depression. We took in a couple of cousins who were down on their luck.
Father’s father: I’m the second youngest of 12 children on a Kansas farm. My father is a 48-year-old veteran of the Civil War when I am born in 1890. One of my older brothers goes off to the Klondike when I am eight or nine. Another tells our father that he will go off and fight the Spanish if he won’t help him out with medical school (my Great Uncle Will). His request is granted and I eventually follow in his footsteps. I am awarded the degree Pharmaceutical Chemist from Kansas State, in 1909, and my MD from Creighton in 1914.
In 1918 I am an Army doctor in France.
I relocate to SLC in the late teens and intern at St. Mark’s. While there, I marry and have two sons, in 1921 and 1924. They both will become doctors as well, attending medical school at USC.
In 1932 we relocate to Los Angeles, settling in the Hancock Park neighborhood. My practice in downtown L.A. continues from the mid-1930s, then carried on by my sons until the the early 1990s.
I join the faculty of USC as a professor of clinical medicine.
I die from a stroke at the age of 58.
My parents were pretty old when they had me, so my grandparents had a different life than most people my age. My grandfathers were too young to fight in WWI and too old to fight in WWII. When I was in my 20s I was enjoying the fruits of a booming economy, they were living through the depression. When one of my grandfathers was my age, he was making very good money in the shipyards of San Francisco durint WWII while I’m struggling to get by.
I’d either be fighting the Japs in the South Pacific and working on developing black lung from the flamethrowers I tote around, or out riding the railroads and hellraising, or waiting in MS for my husband to show back up (both grandmothers). Thanks… but no thanks.
Well, my one grandmother lived to be 101. And my maternal grandfather is 93 and more active than most people my age. That’s pretty badass. The other grandparents died from cancer (lung cancer, I believe–good thing I don’t smoke).
I will live through a foreign occupation of my home nation.
I will emigrate to another country and marry one of their citizens.
I will have three children, one of whom is mentally challenged, another lives with me and another moves far away,has children and dies at 39.
My husband will die when I am in my 50’s.
I will live a very long time and keep my health.
I will be generally a happy productive person (if a bit cranky) well into my 70’s. And despite all the trials I have faced…
Hm. Then msmith537 is about to stick it to me, we’re sliding into the Depression, and I’m about to be put in a camp in interior B.C. and lose all my possessions to the Canadian government.
I vote no.
Interesting idea - when I first moved back to Australia, Boy from Mars and I lived in my Grandparents house - the one they built and moved into when they married in 1940, and lived in together for 60 years, until they both died.
During the 18 months we were there before buying our own home, I often commented that we lived in some ways more like my grandparents than my parents:
All dishes done by hand
All washing dried on the line
Bicycle to work, or the tram
Compost heap
Market to buy groceries
Bread made by hand
Rainwater collection
Economically, I’m not sure though. I have heard speculation that the expected dryup of oil reserves will one day make airtravel the preserve of the very wealthy again, with the follow on effect on shipping meaning seasonality/localness of food will become the norm again.