A letter to/from my Grampa.

This is a very LJ post from me, so if you want to move on, now would be the time. Please don't tell me I'm emo or whatever, I just wanted to share this with the board. I'm not an over-emotional guy, but this kinda touched me (no, I didn't cry).

My Grampa (my mother's father) died on Thanksgiving 2003. He was one of my favorite people in the world and probably the smartest person I've ever met. He was a World War II hero, a mathematician, a big strong guy, and a really fun person to be around.

For my birthday this year, my Aunt Betsy sent me the following.

A letter I wrote to my grampa 2 days before my 8th birthday.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=14474
He had stayed with us a week before and took care of me while I was home sick. We played a certain game I was fond of for hours and hours. (bonus points for guessing the game)

He then sent this back before going on a trip (Polly is my Mom, Bill is my StepDad, Lauren is my older Sister)
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=14475

Here is a pic of what I looked like at the time for reference.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/a...chmentid=14476
Me, and me with my Aunt Betsy.

So yeah. I just wanted to share that. No big deal. If anybody wants to comment or to share some of their early gaming memories, feel free.

What was that, Dragon Warrior... 2? Also, Rockville is a hop skip and a jump away from me.

Not DW2...

Nevermind, it's 1.

That was about the sweetest thing I've ever read. [/girl moment =O]

DW1.

Wow, your grandpa sounds like an awesome guy. Interesting thread.

Dragon Warrior 1. Nice story , Master.

Your grandpa rocks.

That is the fucking hardcorest thing I've ever read on this site. Damn, why can't more heartwarming awesomecoreness like this be posted on this site?

By the way: First game I ever played was Pac Man Jr. at a hot wings place when I was about four years old. My mom, dad, and newborn sister went there after checking up on the house we were moving into. The wing place was way way down west S.R. 50, there was nothing but orange groves around. Now that whole area is Wal-Marts and parking lots and shit.

That kicks 48,536% less ass than Master's grandpa story... and that's giving my story a madsane amount of generosity.

Touching.. :)

My dad used to play Airwolf (NES, of all games) with me back in the day.. That was the closest I ever got to a relative (besides my brother) playing a videogame with me.

He would land the chopper to rescue the hostages, because for some reason I sucked at doing that, and I would play the other 90% of the game. :P

That's great, I hope I'm like that with my kid(s)/ grand kids.

Thanks guys, that means a lot. I'm glad other people dug it.

He was such a cool guy with an interesting life. He graduated Harvard at age 16 with two doctorates, got married to my Grandmother (who we just had to put in a home because her alzheimer's got so bad. It's a nice place though, not a crooked one) so she would wait around for him, and immediately went to WWII. He was an officer (he did ROTC in College) and lost his entire crew while approaching Normandy (really cool story, but just gruesome to hear it told. Some of his friends were close to some barrel of Tar that was on board and they were frozen solid in the position they died in when there were explosions around them. My Grampa had a war Flashback when watching Han Solo get frozen in Carbonite. I always thought that was kinda cool.) and eventually was determined the most important person to reach France for intelligence purposes. He did all the math to calculate enemy positions and broke enemy code all with a slide-rule. Completely hardcore. One day while in France, doing Math calculations for the Army, the Fountains turned on in the Center of Paris (thus signaling the war was over, fountains are an easy bombing target from planes) and he immediately broke down and started crying without being able to stop. He said it was the first time he had cried since he was a little kid. The only other time he ever cried what I knew of was at the end of Saving Private Ryan, when the man asked his wife "Have I been a good man?". He was escorted to France the same way Private Ryan was escorted, and apparently men gave their lives to get him there safely. He was always a stong man in many ways for all of us, and I can only hope to be that way for my family.

Anyway, he will be missed.

PS: Oh, and my Dad played Life Force from beginning to end with me a bunch of times. We always needed the 30 lives code, but we never used them all. We had every level planned out.

That's kickass and pretty heartwarming, Master. I'm glad you posted that...now I'm having fond memories of my grandma buying me my NES when my parents were having trouble just keeping food on the table. Bless her heart.

You're grandfather was the very definition of ruggedness <that's a very good thing, in case you're reading that like, "What's that mean?">. Damn, it kinda makes me sick that so many dudes like us today are little bitches compared to dudes in his day. My stepgrandfather also was in Normandy, but he never ever talks about it, and I respect his reasoning for not wanting to do so. I have the utmost respect for all military personel, but damn... your grandfather was something, man. Graduated Harvard at sixteen?! Graduating Harvard in and of itself is an incredible undertaking! Decoding Nazi intel? With a fucking slide rule?! Hats off, dude, totally. Shit, I wish I could have met him...

I concur with the sentiments in this thread.

Anyway, what medals did he get awarded?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AstroBlue

I concur with the sentiments in this thread.

Anyway, what medals did he get awarded?

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I honestly don't know. I can check the records the next time I visit the East Coast, or I can ask my Mom. I'm sure she knows.

Thanks again guys, all the nice comments really make me happy. It's nice to know people he never met appreciate the things he did while he was alive.

Also, after the war, before he went into Computer Programming (so he could work form home and spend more time with his wife) he worked for NASA as a rocket scientist until after the Apollo program. (For a while there it was like Tom Hanks' carreer was following his life. He wasn't AFAIK ever stranded on an island though)

You can imagine how nervous my father was meeting him for the first time. "Just so you know, my dad is really smart." "It's not like he's a rocket scientist" "Actually..."

Was he like a "Jack of all Trades" kind of soldier? He seems like the kind of guy who could tear apart an enemy soldier, armed or not, considering you said he was a strong guy. Kind of like Solid Snake, but with a Harvard degree.

Something like that. He was a beast of a man with huge muscles, a pot belly and popeye-like forearms. I saw pictures of him when he was younger and he looked like a linebacker. I'll find a pic and post it. But yeah, he was a jack of all trades, and I'm sure you didn't want to mess with him. He was such a gentle person though, I can't imagine him ever getting into a fight, but he did what he had to do in the war I suppose.

He said they used to kill time during downtime (in the war) betting on things he couldn't crush in one of his hands. He said he won a bunch of pocket money crushing things in his hands. That is pretty rediculous. I don't think he ever even worked out.

Kung Fu grip indeed.

Man, a lot of this is starting to sound like Fairy Tales, and legend, but it is all true, I swear. I'll post his memoirs when I get them, next time I'm on the East Coast. They are great stuff. His intellect was second to his sense of humor, so they are a great read.

That first post is one of the best posts I've ever seen on a message board. Great stories, man.

I can remember my grandfather serving WWII but he hasn't told me any stories about it. :cry:

I do get a kick out of hearing him diss bush though.

Sounds similar to my grandpa, he was a vietnam vet and saved a bunch of lives dropping some napalm on the enemy when the US troops were serverly outnumbered before hand. Then he became a rocket scientist, he does missle defense stuff in white sands missle range and works on Israel's defenses. He loves games too, especcially WWII games he's insanely good at strategy stuff.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Master

He said they used to kill time during downtime (in the war) betting on things he couldn't crush in one of his hands. He said he won a bunch of pocket money crushing things in his hands. That is pretty rediculous. I don't think he ever even worked out.

Kung Fu grip indeed.

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LOLlers. :lol: That gave me a good chuckle. Sounds like he was a great guy to have on your team. My grandpa was a really smart guy, too, but not Phd-from-Harvard-at-16 smart. He was a computer systems guru for Naval Intelligence, starting in the 50's or 60's, so he was working with some pretty ancient stuff. He died in 1996, with all sorts of nasty health problems. Grandma told me he never owned a calculator since his head was good enough. I wish he was still around. I'd love to hear some first-hand stories about the early days of computers.

Sadly, no one in my immediate family played video games but myself. I have bad memories about trying to play Street Fighter with my dad. He wasn't very nice. All of my cousins were into games, but I only saw them a few times a year at most.

I knew that letter was about DW1 just by looking at the equipment. They started calling the Large Shield the "Iron Shield" in DW2 and onwards.

Awesome story and an an even awesomer grandpa.

Man, I have such warm memories of Dragon Warrior. The first RPG I ever played. I will have to find my old diary from the second grade, it has my video gaming stories in it complete with pictures. You were so damn cute Master!

Wonderful thread, Master. Thanks for sharing it.

That is a great story Master. :) Those must be awesome memories for you.

Coincidentally around the same time in early 1990 I got my grandma to play a video game for the first time. I was 14 years old and playing Shinobi. She gave it a try and seemed to like it. I was really surprised later when she ended up buying a Master System and Shinobi for herself! She told me she rented a gun game she liked too(which from the description she gave was Gangster Town). A few years later I went to her house and she had a Game Gear.

Dammit, reading that made me jealous.

Nobody in my family was ever that kickass cool.

All my dad ever did was work as a programmer for NASA for a few years during the Apollo 13 project.

He served in Nam but he never talks about it.

Today's generation of men are a bunch of pussies.

Well, I remember when I was in kindergarten, my mom and dad would sneak into my room when I was asleep to play Super Mario Bros. And a few years ago, before I went to Job Corps. and then college, my mom and I would play Bomberman Online. She started getting to where she could trap me good. <Nostalgia>.

Right now she has one of those Jakks Pacific's Ms. Pac Man game things in my room.

As far as I know, no one in my family plays games as seriously as I do, and it's sad because I waish I had someone to talk to during reunions and what-not.

A lot of really good grandparent stories in this thread.. :)

My grandfather was involved in a lot of things in Europe during the WWII era - too many to list here.. He recently wrote a book of his life story, which I think served as a pretty remarkable supplement to
what I knew about communist and facist Europe (specifically, Hungary and Romania) at that time.

oh, and I remember the day he first showed me Tetris running on his PC.

My grandfather would play Daytona USA with me on the Sega Saturn sometimes, not too often though. He was USMC Force Recon but the NSA wouldn't let him deploy to Vietnam, he was pretty close to becoming a Drill Instructor too but the NSA wouldn't let him do that either. Both of his brothers went to Vietnam though, nothing too exciting I guess. My Great Uncle (his brother) got shot real bad through the floor of his helicopter while flying though, almost lost his leg but he got back on track and volunteered to go back to Vietnam, he had some payback to give with the new Cobra the Army was letting him fly :P

Awesome story though Master.

Wow Master, great stuff. The first post was really nice and heartwarming and your third post was just amazing.

Did most of you guys get into gaming because of your parents? My dad was the one who got me into gaming. I remember playing NES with him (Conta was our game of choice), he always used the NES Advantage. We had the 30 lives code on, but he would use up all his and steal mine :lol:. We beat LoZ together, and a bunch of other games. He started my love of gaming, and still to this day I send him codes for all his newest games (he doesn't know how to use Gamefaqs, bless his heart). My mom beat Dragon Warrior 1 and Final Fantasy 1, but after that they started getting too complicated for her.

When I was around 3 my dad would bring home this old Monochrome computer that he got from school. It had a bunch of games he made for me on it, so yeah, my dad did get me into gaming. He even played the occassional game with me (though he doesn't play any anymore).