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So I was chatting away to my mum the other day when she slips out that she makes terrain for train sets, I was quite surprised to say the least, in my entire life I have never know her to do anything remotely like this or even show a passing interest, even more so considering my hobby, so this got me thinking, why is it so surprising?

Because my mum is a tiny little welsh lady with a big personality and it just never occurred to me that she would be into trains, since then we have been swapping ideas and even sitting down and building models together.

So dakkaites, what things have your parents done that have surprised you?

I found out that my old man was a nazi war criminal when the Mossad broke into our house and abducted him. Jokes aside, I was surprised to find out that my mom was an immigration officer at one point, given that she herself immigrated here and therefore doesn't have a great command of the English language, so it's funny to think of a semi-literate Asian lady speaking in broken English to help other semi-literate Asians into the country.

I recently found out the extent of my Mums singing talent and that of my Grans.

Both were superb singers, with a talent for operetta.

Upon my mums death I had a load of locked steel file boxes that I didn't know what to do with until my father in law picked them. Stacks and stacks of music sheets and certificates for winning prestigious competitions were within along with some news papers with reviews of performances they had.

Stunning really, when you consider that I am tone deaf.

That’s awesome burning haha


Grim my old man is Singaporean and his English is hilarious, especially as he has a bit of a Welsh twang to it because of my mum

 Formosa wrote:
That’s awesome burning haha


Grim my old man is Singaporean and his English is hilarious, especially as he has a bit of a Welsh twang to it because of my mum

Ha! Nice! That must be an interesting combination to hear, since one of my dad's friends is Singaporean so I know what their accent sounds like, though I'm not particularly familiar with what a Welsh accent sounds like though.

I think the most surprising thing is that I'm not surprised by things I know my parents do/have done To be honest, I think they're more surprised by some of the things I do/have done.

Unless they're hiding things, they're both relatively... mundane

My dad spent the better part of 19 years driving a semi for different companies in Indiana, did a tour in the Army, rough and tumble blue collar man to his core.

He collects Avon perfume bottles. You know, the sculpted bottles with ornate toppers that make them look like vehicles or a woman in a flowing dress holding a parasol. THOSE Avon bottles. It was like finding out my SF friend was a Brony.

Off the top of my head I can’t think of anything crazy that my parents done. But my grandparents...actually best not go into that.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Off the top of my head I can’t think of anything crazy that my parents done. But my grandparents...actually best not go into that.

And now I’m curious haha

My dad dragged a dead cat through the halls of his college when he was 20. Only reason he didn’t get kicked out was that he fessed up, told the dean he was solely responsible, and his friends didn’t deserve to be punished (they weren’t sure which one it was, and were going to suspend all of them).

My mom tried pot once as a teen. Hell, I’m actually the only person in my immediate family who has quite literally never touched the stuff.

Obviously my dad’s act was way more shocking. Mom...not so much. She just hasn’t done anything more shocking than that.

My great-grand father by my Father's part was an militar official in the Civil War and he ordered the executions of something like 200-300 civilians that where suspected supporters (Poets, teachers, etc...) of the Spanish's second Republic...so yeah.

I was surprised to find out how much my father was into model railroads.

He had a stroke a few years back and I was cleaning out his closet only to discover a lot of railroad cars. Dozens of them, and spare parts for building switching stations, automated walkways and the like.

He got on me bad about miniatures when I was a teenager. I guess he was trying to speak from experience about scale modelling, but the message never got through.

 Formosa wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Off the top of my head I can’t think of anything crazy that my parents done. But my grandparents...actually best not go into that.

And now I’m curious haha

Well...no, I shouldn’t.

I’ll just say this; my grandad stopped some Japanese hornets setting up shop here. He worked on the docks in the ‘50s and a consignment of timber had some of the buggers on board. He tried to stuff one into a match box and ended up squashing it. Probably for the best. We already have Japanese knotweed brought in by stupid Victorians. No need to pile the bugs in on top of that.

My great grandfather was a boot legger and ran a coastal rum cutter during prohibition, he was shot at two different points by police and managed to survive both times. He also rode with a motorcycle gang which I never would have guessed because later in life he became a super stuffy business type you never would have suspected of being anything but prim and proper.

My Grandfather was a flight and radar instructor in the army aircorps and experienced a shelling from a German U boat while he was stationed in FL. He always regretted not being deployed to the front but he taught a lot of pilots who survived because of that training. He was an incredibly smart man and IMO that intellect would have been wasted had he been sent to the field, his superiors knew what he'd excel at and he did very well as a trainer and working with stuff that was cutting edge tech at that time. Later he wrote code and targeting telemetry for the army back in the days of punch card systems and computers were the size of a house. He stayed active and current with computers his entire life, even at the age of 93 he was still teaching classes on computer tech and knew as much as most young and current IT people. It was impressive considering most people his age group didn't even know how to use a mouse let alone do anything advanced.

My dad was a skydiving instructor and pilot with close to 3k jumps performed if not for the pictures and old trophies I never would have imagined him doing that as he was a bit of a shut in by the time us kids came around. He was also a really good skier and traveled all over Europe on ski trips which is how he met my mom, I never saw him ski or even express interest in it as he apparently changed a lot when he got older. About the time I was a teenager he started doing competition pistol shooting, became semi-pro at it and did all sorts of state and national level competitions. It was one of the few activities I got to see him do and I went to some events with him.

Found out recently that my mum had been proposed to 5 times & engaged 3 times before actually marrying my dad when she was 20. They're just days away from their 50th anniversary.

My grandfather survived the German invasion of Crimea by hiding in an old mine, where he fought alongside his father (my great-grandfather, who had actually been forced to retreat to the same mine before in the Russian Civil War) and a lot of other Soviet soldiers who had taken refuge there. The Germans had surrounded the mines, and they had to survive by licking off the water that condensed on the ceiling and eating pretty much whatever was even remotely edible. The only other alternative was to raid the Germans for their supplies, but that was obviously very risky. At some point, my grandfather and a small squad of soldiers managed to break through German lines when those were broken during a successful counterattack. They disappeared into the countryside (they joined up with a partisan group in the mountains). My great-grandfather stayed behind and was killed in the last battle when the Germans finally managed to enter the mines. At that time, my grandfather was about the same age as I am right now. I am immensely grateful that thanks to his sacrifice and that of my great-grandfather and so many others, I won't have to go through any similar ordeals. I don't think I would have survived.

My father is mostly perfectly boring, but during the 1990's he was forced to sell munitions to third world regimes and shady groups in order to pay his men who kept protecting the depot after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It took a long time before the Soviet successor states had everything on the rails and agreed as to how the Soviet Army and its massive stockpiles should be divided. During the total chaos in-between, no one was paying my dad. So the choice of him and his men was to either abandon the depot to find a different source of income, which would have left all the munitions (including chemical weapons) up for grabs by criminal groups and terrorists, or to sell some of the inventory in order to protect the rest. That time was a mess.

My grandfather was born in 1902, and was dirt poor. I didn't learn until after his death that he had become ordained as a minister.

He moved his family to a small farm, sharecropper style in the 1920's. After being there a few days the locals flipped him a white robe and told him to show up to the next klan meeting. He went to one, and only one meeting simply to buy his family time to move out in the middle of the night. He was ashamed of putting on that robe till the day he died.

Oh, grandparents are included? Take a seat, folks.

My grandfather had an abscessed tooth that had to be removed by a dentist. This was the only time he had a tooth removed by a dentist. Guess how many teeth he had for the entirety of the time I knew him? Yep, none. As soon as he developed a toothache, he'd go into the bathroom with a bottle of whiskey, a pair of pliers, and a shop rag. After pulling his own tooth, he'd take two aspirin and go to bed, wake up in the morning and go to work.

Speaking of work, he had a log roll free while he was loading a trailer and sandwiched his finger between it and another log, breaking it soundly. He took his lunch break, drove into town to the drugstore, picked up a splint, med tape, and some aspirin, and went back to work.

He was about the most manly man I've ever known, and I've patterned my work ethic after him.

Oh man my parents were pretty boring, at most they did a lot of drugs but that was about it (none of the biggies though, heroine, meth, crack etc)

My paternal grandfather was a cargo plane pilot in the navy, he washed out of fighter pilot school near the end when his stomach couldn't handle the acrobatics, a blessing in disguise since I remember him telling me everyone but him and two others from his class were killed in the pacific as they were the first wave of fighter pilots against the Japanese.

My maternal grandfather was a pretty big time professor and did a lot of work with big time industries (big time like G.E. calling him up personally to help fix their super expensive stuff), even was part of a U.N. delegation to the PRC at one point. But he was in Bulgaria for some big conference and evidently the secret police were keeping an eye on him because someone came up to talk to him and these officers came out of nowhere and asked if the man was bothering my grandfather, he shook his head side to side to indicate no, not knowing that that meant yes in Bulgaria. So he got someone arrested by mistake over in Bulgaria.

I don't know much about my great grandfathers or what I do know is that they led pretty simple lives, but my great great grandfather was in a very prestigious civil war cavalry unit for the Union. We have zero idea how he got in since he was a dirt poor Pennsylvania Irish farmer. But he was captured at Brandy Station when his unit charged the rebel artillery and had his horse shot out from underneath him

My parents eloped when she was 16 and he was 19. All she had was the clothes on her back, $10, and a change of clothes (ill-fitting) borrowed from a friend. She got reported as a kidnapped child for a bit. My grandmother practically disowned her for 8 years until after my brother was born.

Early marriage aside, it's quite inspirational that two people that were that dirt-poor could still both get their GED's, work their butts off, and end up owning two companies ( 7-UP bottling company) and owning a pretty nice home by their mid to late 20's. Then be able to afford college tuition for 4 kids. Basically shaped by hard-work, determination and sacrifice.

My dad use to have a pretty righteous white-guy 'fro!

 cuda1179 wrote:
My parents eloped when she was 16 and he was 19. All she had was the clothes on her back, $10, and a change of clothes (ill-fitting) borrowed from a friend. She got reported as a kidnapped child for a bit. My grandmother practically disowned her for 8 years until after my brother was born.

Early marriage aside, it's quite inspirational that two people that were that dirt-poor could still both get their GED's, work their butts off, and end up owning two companies ( 7-UP bottling company) and owning a pretty nice home by their mid to late 20's. Then be able to afford college tuition for 4 kids. Basically shaped by hard-work, determination and sacrifice.

That’s actually really inspiring. It’s also makes my excuses seem weak and hollow.

Receiving in the mail. A huge box containing Smartfood popcor, deer jerky, tea bags, coffee grinder, coffee beans and a huge assortment of porn mags.

My parents were kinda boring, but my grandparents not so much. One story about my grandmother we discovered after she died when we were clearing out her attic to sell the house.. we found a super old diary from when she was around 20. She was practically engaged, but her BF ran off to "the war". While he was gone, his best buddy, my grandfather, stole her away .. other guy came home to find out the hard way. I don't think they were friends anymore after that.

In my family, we don’t tend to find out good stuff until eulogies.

But Grandad Allan?

He was involved in WW2, but not on the front line. Instead, he trained pilots on Morse Code. According to records, his ability there was so acute, he couldn’t just tell you the message, but who sent it, just from the rhythm. If anyone’s a writer who wants to use that nugget, PM me and we’ll discuss my cut (not his, he’s ded.)

And when the war was over? Went back home, to find out the love of his life was engaged to A.N.Other. He goes up to Granny, and says (you’ll need to imagine an Edinburgh accent for this) ‘no yer no, yer Marrying me’. And that was that, to Granny’s dying day.

On that side of the family. We also have the first Policeman to be shot in Edinburgh. I mean, he survived, obvs. But more interestingly. He seems to be where my height comes from. Everyone else? Bit of a short arse to be honest. Me? 6’2”. I did always wonder why I was a big bloke, and everyone else was tiny.

Mum’s side? Well. Great Uncle Valentine (guess the day he was born?), was part of a bomber crew. And we’ve got his logs. Including Dresden. But, he also knew Sean ‘yes. That one’ Connery when he was a kid. He used to do the milkround for my late Gran.

As for Grandad Robinson? eff knows. Born out of wedlock around the 1920’s might give you an idea as to chaotic records. But, seems somewhere in there was a 19th (possibly 18th?) century Strongman, that married a lass simply descrived as a Gypsy Princess.

Weird old life, and I’m shockingly normal for all that!

My Dad, straight-laced, sober as the day Dad, was a pool shark.

I didn’t know for 25 years, when one day I asked my Dad if he felt like a game. Said he hadn’t played since University, but sure.

I beat him the first game, and barely the second game. Then he won. Then he ran the table from break to win. I was staring at him, and he told me he drank his way through University on beer-bets at the local pool hall. “I used to get hammered all weekend long, if I was on a roll.”

My Dad, that I have to pry his mouth open to have a drink with supper. Was a drunken pool shark.

I got three balls down in the game after, but I’m pretty sure he missed on purpose to let me play. Then it was supper and I haven’t had a chance to play him since.

in 1919 my grandfather (17 at the time) was an apprentice to a gunsmith. The gunsmith accidentally discharged a weapon indoors, shooting my grandfather through the eye. The bullet was lodged in his head and he needed a specialist.

He road a train alone to Omaha, Nebraska. He stepped off the train (head bandaged and by himself) on Sept. 28, 1919.

http://www.blackpast.org/aaw/omaha-courthouse-lynching-1919

He literally saw this man being drug down the street behind a car. It was his first impression of Omaha, and it made him nervous the rest of his life.

My Father's side of the family is pretty neat, my Grandfather owned a pet store in Houston and had a Giant Macaw that hated everyone. He apparently worked at his father's pet store in St. Martin before coming to the U.S. as a kid. He always had some cool parrots and such around, although he had sold his store when he retired. I learned my dad was a huge D&D nerd as well, I still have his 1st addition books.

My Mom was a diver at Sea-o-rama in Galveston, feeding fish and such. She was also a dive instructor when she lived in California. She still has a scar on her hand where she fed some fish with big teeth (I don't remember what it was) and it bit her hand instead of the fish.

My maternal Grandfather was a sniper in the Army at the very tail end of WW2 (he was part of the Japan occupation after everything had ended) and then served in Korea. They tried to get him to come back when Vietnam started up but he declined. The only time he talked about his time in the service was when he told me about how they would practice firing from the back of a Jeep with a Thompson to practice hitting moving targets and how when he was in Korea the unit he was assigned to had a truck with a quad .50 on the back and if they came under fire they would light up the trees where they figured it was coming from, with the truck, while he and a couple others from the unit would flank the position since the enemy soldiers were usually so entrenched that return fire from any where else was ineffective.

 Grimskul wrote:
I found out that my old man was a nazi war criminal when the Mossad broke into our house and abducted him. Jokes aside, I was surprised to find out that my mom was an immigration officer at one point, given that she herself immigrated here and therefore doesn't have a great command of the English language, so it's funny to think of a semi-literate Asian lady speaking in broken English to help other semi-literate Asians into the country.

What is immigration officer ? Is it like ICE or more an administrative person helping with administrative things ?

My family originate from the East End of London, and my mum's grandparents were quite close to the Krays. There's a photo I have of my grandad and the Krays in their boxing club, all lined up with an award, and for such a notorious pair they look so scrawny and tiny compared to the others. When he reached my age the Krays offered him opportunities to join their "activities", something he immediatly but kindly refused, although it was through them that he met my nan, so I have something to thank them for.