Thursday, October 16, 2008

My grandmother...

I think it might help to explain my previous and kind of rambling post.

My take on America and life here might be diffrent then many of my friends, colored by the fact that I am a frist generation American.

My grandmother (same grandmother) came to the United States by herself after the second world war. She left my father and aunt in Germany and came here, alone, to find a better life for her family. My father and aunt joined her a bit later, my father then in highschool and my aunt younger.

My father joined the milatary, as so many who are not native born do (says something, no?) And I grew up living life through the eyes of a first generation army brat. We did not live in a big subdivision, and none of my friends had parents with expensive cars, or got to go on annual expensive vacations. So none of that was put forth to me as "the goal."

It probably helped this that my mother was a little hippy dippy...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A little hippy?? Remember when she would wake us in the middle of the night to see lightning storms, or to stare at the moon?? How about the time she wore bell bottoms to the sunday school christmas play she was directing? Maybe the fact we grew up in the woods like little wolf children gave her away? Poor Oma never saw it coming! Her level headed, classy,& serious son off to marry a spacey,tree hugging hippy!! No more philharmonic and shakespeare sonnets...

NEOcreativegenius said...

Well said . . . as you remember, my mom and dad were never about buying a lot of stuff either. I remember going through old toys before Christmas picking out things to donate to the children's home, and to this day 20+ years later, I usually buy at least one toy for Toys for Tots at Christmas.

Never really considered how parental background factored in, but my mom's (and your dad's) formative years coupled with my dad growing up as one of five brothers really did shape their outlook on child-rearing. I'm grateful for it.