I grew up in Slow Time. As information was largely restricted to mail, 3 TV stations, half a dozen AM radio stations, and word of mouth, my older relations talked to me. I had an immediate connection to events stretching back as far as WWI. Hell, WWII - in Canada - was still fresh in everyones' minds in the mid 70s.
As a result, I had an appreciation for history that can't be garnered from a textbook. Primary source material, if you will. I remember my great-great uncle "Chick" (Charles) telling me and my brother about gas attacks in the trenches. You had to listen closely, because he spoke in a whisper...And his skin was as white as a sheet, as he had about a quarter of a lung left.
I remember my (recently deceased) Uncle Bill, who wouldn't talk to us about WWII until we'd done our own time in the service, except when he had a little too much of my grandfather's homemade wine at Christmas...And then he'd tell us tales of the Falaise Pocket, of being surrounded by fleeing Germans, and of trying so desperately to relieve the Poles who were keeping the pocket shut.
My grandfather, who didn't serve due to not having a right eye (Childhood accident. He tried and tried to bullshit his way into the military until they threatened to have him arrested as a nuisance.), told us stories of the horrible years of the great depression, and of the labor struggle, of fighting with Pinkertons (To this day, he spits if you say that word) with axe handles.
Back then, in Slow Time, I was a child surrounded by story-telling giants.
But time has sped up...As the man said, Charley stole the handle, and the train won't slow down. Kids are raised by the internet and the TV, and they have precisely zero connection to anything older than 10 years ago at best.
It makes me wonder why we even keep track of what year it is, any more, you know?
Some say it's for the best. The first half of the last century was hardly a picnic, and is there really any point to showing kids the awful horrors of Nazism and gas warfare?
I disagree, but I don't think there's much to be done about it. You can't turn back the clock, and you can't instill a sense of history in people that are just about physically wired into the present. My generation is effectively the last bridge to the past, in a nation that doesn't want to hear stories that don't end in 120 minutes, wrapped up all nice and tight, with no annoying loose ends...And most of my generation is too drunk or spaced out in front of the TV to tell you any of that shit, anyway.
You'll find out, soon enough, anyway. As some old wiseass said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it", and you can already see that happening, with the wave of nationalism and religious nutjobbery that dominates a nation "led" by Weimar Republic-esque wimps who don't believe in anything at all.
And those of you who survive will tell your children and grandchildren about it, and time will slow back down. Or maybe not. Maybe they'll just stare at you while you talk, watching the mpeg video that's playing on their cornea implants.
So let me bid you an early welcome to Slow Time. Well, slow for you, anyway.
Okay for now,
Dok
I grew up exactly the same way. Stories of union railroad strikes and being shot at. My Uncle James survived the Battle of the Bulge, he was a machine gunnery sargent. And so much more that will be lost when our generation dies.
In my day we respected what our elders had to say, it was like living history to listen to them.
Quote from: Charley Brown on August 19, 2010, 08:46:17 PM
I grew up exactly the same way. Stories of union railroad strikes and being shot at. My Uncle James survived the Battle of the Bulge, he was a machine gunnery sargent. And so much more that will be lost when our generation dies.
In my day we respected what our elders had to say, it was like living history to listen to them.
It sounds corny, but it's true. I never listened to a word my folks had to say, but I could - and did - sit for hours on end listening to the oldsters.
As a side benefit, they really seemed to appreciate it. Especially Chick. What was to him the Worst Thing Ever had largely been forgotten.
Corney? Not to me. Like you I could sit and listen for hours. Even if it was the adults talking, if you were very still and quiet they would you stay.
I wish I had had that as a kid. No one told me stories and I would have listened.
I listened. They both died before I was old enough to have an inkling about what it all meant and ask questions, but I listened. My father would silently signal for me to sit at his feet, hidden by his legs once my great uncle was a few beers in. I'd nestle into his blanket and stare at the stars while uncle Ken got drunk enough to talk about Korea. My father would nurse a beer and sit there, tightlipped. He wanted me to know. I appreciate that.
Quote from: Hover Cat on August 20, 2010, 12:51:56 AM
I wish I had had that as a kid. No one told me stories and I would have listened.
You're too young. They were all gone.
My grandpa Wally was a veteran. I only know because I remember seeing the purple heart he got. In our family,it wasn't done to talk about such things. I think.
I miss my grandpa. :(
WOW Dok, hitting the heart tonight eh? I have to have a "real" keyboard to properly respond.
Damn my friend, this is great. A new series? At the knees of remember?
More later. Just had to say awesome!
:mittens:
Dok Howl and I remember. Will you listen?
Yes.
Quote from: Mistress Freeky, HRN on August 20, 2010, 01:48:45 AM
In our family,it wasn't done to talk about such things. I think.
It was the same in mine. Loads of books, 2 TV channels, 3 radio stations, but shhhhhhh!
Quote from: Doktor Howl on August 19, 2010, 07:54:30 PM
You'll find out, soon enough, anyway. As some old wiseass said, "Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it", and you can already see that happening, with the wave of nationalism and religious nutjobbery that dominates a nation "led" by Weimar Republic-esque wimps who don't believe in anything at all.
And those of you who survive will tell your children and grandchildren about it, and time will slow back down. Or maybe not. Maybe they'll just stare at you while you talk, watching the mpeg video that's playing on their cornea implants.
So let me bid you an early welcome to Slow Time. Well, slow for you, anyway.
Okay for now,
Dok
:mittens:
I wish I hadn't been fucked up when I was a kid . . . I would have listened.
My grandpa only talked about WW2 once that I can recall but he had pictures and mementos of his time spent bringing people out of concentration camps - huge piles of bodies and the look on people's faces . . . I wasn't suppose to see the pictures and after that everything disappeared.
I felt like I've been robbed of that tie to history and to people, when I found everything gone.
I had a real good buddy a year older than me who was a Marine and a Discordian. He did all kindsa stuff. I listened to his stories for hours at a time, when he'd talk about it. He had this habit of rubbing his scars when he talked about it. I knew which story was riding high on his mind by which set of inadvertent body mods he was touching, before he ever spoke. Then he went nuts and ran off to California or Oregon to marry some Jehovah's Witness and I haven't heard from him since.
Quote from: curiosity on August 20, 2010, 05:00:51 AM
I wish I hadn't been fucked up when I was a kid . . . I would have listened.
My grandpa only talked about WW2 once that I can recall but he had pictures and mementos of his time spent bringing people out of concentration camps - huge piles of bodies and the look on people's faces . . . I wasn't suppose to see the pictures and after that everything disappeared.
I felt like I've been robbed of that tie to history and to people, when I found everything gone.
I had a real good buddy a year older than me who was a Marine and a Discordian. He did all kindsa stuff. I listened to his stories for hours at a time, when he'd talk about it. He had this habit of rubbing his scars when he talked about it. I knew which story was riding high on his mind by which set of inadvertent body mods he was touching, before he ever spoke. Then he went nuts and ran off to California or Oregon to marry some Jehovah's Witness and I haven't heard from him since.
I mourn your loss.
I never knew my American grandfather. He fought in the Pacific. He also got cancer when my mom and dad were just dating. That's a link to the past I'll never have. Apparently I'm just like him, which is too bad. He would have been a great guide, and I would have listened to his stories if he felt like telling them. He'd be 86 now if he were still alive.
Quote from: Charley Brown on August 20, 2010, 02:03:26 AM
Dok Howl and I remember. Will you listen?
Yeah well listening to you too is what brought me here to PD. Via MW, MA and EB&G....
While I appreciate the compliment in that you must think I'm one of the youngsters, I'm actually older than Dok.
Seriously though, I was extremely fortunate to have been raised by my grandparents for much of my childhood. Being a second generation American (that means my grandparents came over on the boat and my mom and her brother were the first born in America... sorry have had to explain that too many times) anyway, my grandparents lived in a valley outside of Rogersville TN. We were surrounded by their brothers and sisters and their families. So I grew up hearing the horror stories of Ireland. How my great great grandparents survived the Great Famine. (and it was always referred to that way) How they survived the civil war there. The sympathies my family had or did not have (depending on the amount of alcohol consumed) with northern Ireland.
My grandfather was born in 1899. He was too young to fight in WWI and too old to fight in WWII. His older brothers were veterans and I can remember sitting around after a family dinner as the men drank themselves into sleep and the conversations would be terrible and fascinating at the same time. Grandpa would talk about the big strike at the Kingsport Press which went on for about 4 years before the unions were disbanded at the Press. One of the few ever unresolved Union organized strikes in the US.
One of my grandmother's brother lost both his legs in WWI. I remember him being a very quiet man. One family reunion when I was maybe 6 or 7 he arrived 3 sheets to the wind and the things he told us. I was in high school before I truly understood some of the things he talked about. Walking ankle deep through mud that was red from blood. He talked about losing his legs, about lying on the field waiting on a medic and fighting off a french soldier who was trying to take his boots. He joked when he told this saying he was pretty sure he wouldn't need them again, it was just the damn principle of the thing. He died a couple of months after that.
Then I have my Dad who was in Vietnam. You didn't hear a lot from Dad on that subject unless he was deep in his scotch. He talked about being stationed in Cambodia with no problem, but his actual time in Vietnam, well, all we know is he was there.
Then I have Dad's parents, my grandmother was an Arrowood, the stories she told us, my god I really thought for years she had to be lying. She lived "off reservation" in the middle of the woods as a child because her father was a criminal. Well, he was considered a criminal by the US government. He was actually a miner who got caught hunting on state property. Anyway, she would tell us horror stories. Government agents came into her home when she was 5, shot both her mother and father As well as an uncle who was visiting, leaving her and her younger sister there, in the middle of the woods. Family didn't find them for 2 weeks. She and her sister were separated. Her sister being still almost a baby was immediately adopted. She was passed around various foster homes as free labor. She didn't remember attending school for more than a day here a day there until she was 12 at which point her mother's sister moved back to Virginia after living out west for a lot of years and found her. To the day she died, she would tell the story of the men with badges who killed her parents. We tried for years to research the incident but could never find any facts.
I kind of think part of the reason I never heard stories like these is because I never had any relatives who served around. My maternal grandfather spent Korea guarding the White House and my paternal one went through ROTC instead. No one served in Vietnam, no one served in the Gulf, and no one has served in Iraq or Afghanistan. I've not lived near any relatives in close to a decade and a half, so that might be part of it, too.
I do have stories about my great grandmother, though. She was a tough old bird. Born in 1896 to a couple from Germany, she was married off at 16 to a man about three times her age. She divorced him in the 1930s, kept the kids AND the ranch and proceeded to run the thing by herself until her boys were old enough to take over in the late 40s. I never did get to meet her. She lived in Montana and died in 1999 while I was living here in California.
You guys may want to think about writing those stories down.
Quote from: Charley Brown on August 20, 2010, 11:49:57 PM
You guys may want to think about writing those stories down.
I have as much as I can remember in a trunk full of notebooks. I have started putting on a flashdrive but I stil have a written copy. Stiil do not fully trust computers ha ha.
I have a few family journals but lost a fucking dissertation on a century of Ireland due to my father's (adopted) illness.
I agree that History at it's most personally relevant level, is all passed on by word of mouth. I remember my Great Grandmother telling me how, at 6 years old, she got to present Queen Victoria with a posy of flowers at her Jubilee. Which means I have a direct link to someone who met Queen Victoria. Not much, on the grand scale of things, but it means a lot to me. It's always the Matriarchs of any family that have all the most relevant stories. They are the ones who keep all the family secrets. After my Grandmother died, my Great Aunt, (her sister) told my Mother that the year after the War ended, my Grandmother had a baby by an American serviceman, which my Grandfather insisted she put up for adoption to save their marriage. My Mother, (a resourceful woman) spent six months tracking her down, and discovered she had a half sister, living less than 10 miles away. They agreed to meet, and got on really well, (which is apparently quite rare) so I got a new Auntie. But for all those years, my Grandmother, carried that secret pain, and never mentioned it. Swore her sister (the only one apart from my Grandfather who knew) to secrecy, for as long as she lived. When my Grandmother died, my Great Aunt (the last person who knew) told my Mother, then died weeks afterwards. But it illustrates the point that History is kept by the Old People, and passed on (or not) at the appropriate times. Knowing your own Family History, gives you a grounding that makes all other History so much more relevant, as you have points of personal reference to use as a framework to work with. I personally have known six generations of women in my family, two Great Grandmothers, Two Grandmothers, their Sisters, my Mothers siblings, their kids, (my cousins) and their children. But it's only now, that I (in my early 40's) can really see what a valuable asset this is. My own children tell me to shut up, and that I'm a boring old fart, (pretty much the same as I told my elders at that age) but that doesn't stop me telling them the same stories I was told. And so, History, at it's most basic level, gets passed on.
I don't think the passing of stories has stopped. My father in law fought in Vietnam, he doesn't like to talk about it, but he does interact with my daughter a lot, and I know that he has told her some of his stories, perhaps not the ones of the war (he doesn't drink anymore, he was an alcoholic for too long) but he tells her stories about what his life was like.