Grandpa Stories

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My friend Mike Moldeven is 93+ and is an active writer with his own blog. He created writings called "Grandpa Stories" some of which were published. His grandkids loved them and it helped him be close with his kids and grand kids. The following is his blog about how / why he began these stories.

During a talk I gave to a senior citizens group a woman in the audience remarked, ‘I’m a volunteer helper in a class of first graders at (naming a nearby school.) I haven’t given it much thought until now, but I’ve come to realize that some youngsters see their grandparents regularly, others rarely, and still others see their grandparents not at all. For a few, grandparents live too far away, and other youngsters don’t know where their grandparents live or even if they have grandparents, but saddest of all are the kids who don’t know what grandparents are.’

Grandparents and grandchildren are natural allies, but when their homes are too far apart, or other barriers intervene, their alliance weakens. Everybody loses, including the youngsters’ parents - the generation in the middle.

I live in one city, my grandchildren in another almost a thousand miles distant. During one of my visits I took my, then, three-year-old granddaughter for a stroll. We paused to examine a spider’s web spanning a space between two shrubs. A rain shower had passed shortly before and droplets festooned the web’s strands and rainbow-sparkled in the morning sunlight. Standing there, both of us bent forward peering into the web, I wove a story that transformed the sparkling strands into a carnival and the spider into an acrobat. Granddaughter’s eyes widened with wonder.

We continued on and stopped at a house to observe a cat on the porch playing with a yellow ball. I wove another tale, this time of a cat and a strange ball that bounced too high and disappeared into a cloud. Again, my granddaughter’s expression showed her pleasure in hearing grandpa’s story. For the remainder of my visit, and during subsequent visits, I told her, and when he was old enough, my grandson, of the world around us and how we hoped to, some day, live all together peacefully on Planet Earth.


Visits, in either direction were infrequent. Adult-oriented telephone calls usually left only brief moments for talking to grandchildren. Long distance calls just didn’t generate the right ambiance and enough time for the relaxed talking and easy listening that goes naturally with a grandpa story. Then, too, at the close of an adult telephone conversation the youngsters are usually busy at other things, and sometimes grandpas just don’t do well as talkers.


In my situation, I filled the gap with hand-scribed and, later on, typed stories. The letter-stories lengthened our telephone chats to devising plots for new stories, flesh-out characters, settings, and scenes. There are no better aids to a grandparent-grandchild telephone or email story conference than our faithful friends Who, What, Where, When, Why and How.

In my situation, one letter-story followed another, often illustrated with pictures from discarded magazines. When I couldn’t find a just-right illustration, I laboriously sketched an all-thumbs grandpa original. It was an enjoyable experience for me, and feedback from the family showed it was enjoyable for my grandchildren as well.

"Vampires"

'I' m off the politics this week because it's was announced in the newspaper ( therefore it must be true) that yet another vampire movie is set for a fall release. What is it with this Vampire obsession the last 2 years or so? Countless movie and tv shows. Some could argue escapism comes in various stripes and colors. Are vampires any worse than Von Diesel in any movie he does. Go watch one of his movies (or Jet Li or The Rock) and you'll come out of the theater convinced someone sucked every last gray cell out of your brain and robbed you of your money to boot. But, I think this vampire obsession goes deeper than just bad story lines and acting.

Vampires are the undead, mostly they attack women (hey where are the feminists now?). They rip their necks open, drink their blood, and leave them an undead corpse. I mean wasn't the real life Jack the Ripper in this league? Nobody thought what he was doing was cool. Then again he didn't look like David Copperfield. I mean what if he was young, handsome, wore eyeliner, was charming, mysterious and talked philosophy? That's what vampires do and yet women watch these movies and think that vampires kill romantically. BUT here is the hook....the gotcha....women fantasize that this GQ vampire will kill anyone BUT THEM. It's power and control over the bad boy that makes these women swoon over the vampire movies.(By the way, and it's a small point but most of these vampires are awfully well spoken and educated. Is there a college for vampires? )

So girls, what is the story? If your date romances you, seduces you and is good looking then you say what the hell have me; turn me into a ghoulish, blood sucking, souless hanger-on in your vampire entourage. Here are 2 points: women are starved for some romance in their lives and for a guy that will love them so much they will reform for them. What can be more powerful (Sookie) than knowing you are a woman that is so desireable, you can get a vampire to shut down his instinct to hurt you?

It's no secret (in real life) women go for the bad boys. You know the brooding, mystery man that is "misunderstood" and "complicated". (Christian Slater)! The same charmer that if he feels threatened by another guy, he goes ballistic and kills him. Not even Vampires in love are perfect. Women love to believe they can turn the bad boy into someone that will love them only and be nice to them only. It's like this: you can be a hell-raiser to everyone in the world but me, you will love me, be southern polite and charming to me, treat me like a lady (not like a woman drawn to pale skinned night crawlers) and above all change your bad ways for me, for me, for me. Of course he will but only for a while and then this creep begins to treat you like crap, just like he does everyone else and you end up disappointed. Whatever that what they we have therapists for. After a thousand tears and a thousand dollars of therapy you can be back out there on the trail looking for another bad boy to reform. Nice guys = boring, bad boys = exciting but only so far......when "Dimrod" the bad boy begins to cheat on you, beat you, ridicule you, ignore you, use you for sex, money, and a place to crash coming off of one of his alcoholic benders or running from the law, well he don't look so good now does he.

If I had a dollar for everytime I've heard a woman say, "I just want a nice guy, someone that will listen to me, talk things out, someone that wants a relationship, a guy that is committed to me etc." I guarantee you the next time I see them they are on the back of a Harley with a cigarette hanging out their mouth and a tattoo on their breast of their new bad boy boyfriend "Zipperhead".

Give it up girls, this vampire obsession is just the Hollywood (melodramatic) extension of your desire to be with with kid always in Saturday School in high school. The dude who is good in bed even if he has to go through a half bottle of scotch to get there and he is either an ex felon, or a future felon.

Vampires suck your blood out, draining you of your life. Real bad boys drain you of your patience, love, soul, and your bank account. In the movie with Arnold S. and Jaime Lee Curtis where he appears to be this nondescript day job Government employee, Jaime Lee finds him boring and dull. Then when she finds out he's a kick ass spy, complete with the ability to kill people and blow things up suddenly she is attracted to him. You can see her in the movie looking at him differently, like, oh, I didn't know I had a bad ass hubby I have to tame with my sex appeal and charm.

Years ago to test my theory I went on a date and when she said, "I like you" I paused and then said this to her, " Don't get involved with me, I'm complicated and have a hard time showing my feelings". She didn't say anything for about 10 seconds and then she scooted her cair up 2-3 inches closer to the table, leaned across the table, took my hand and said, " Maybe, you just needed to meet someone like me".

My advice to the guys is this......forget the chit chat, the solid reliable guy thing. Start smoking around your girl, swear more, get buffer, threaten to kick someone's ass and if it comes to that start blowing things up. Tell her she is the only one that can keep you in check. If that doesn't get her going threaten to bite her neck and suck every last drop out of her.

Where is "O"?

Where is Obama"? I think Obama is showing his rookie(ness) to the detriment of our country. Remember the campaign ad back when Hillary was running for the Democratic nomination against Barack Obama it said: "It's 2am and the red phone rings, who do you want answering it"? She caught a lot of flack then for suggesting that Barack Obama didn't have the experience to handle international crisis moments. Under Democratic Party pressure she pulled the ads. However, she did ask an important question. What she suggested could happen has happened: the red phone has rung (more than once during his presidency) and the way the President has responded makes it clear he doesn't know how to handle international crisis issues. Specifically, this time, Egypt's unrest and the eventual resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarek. President Obama has been a deer in the head lights.

Before anyone thinks I am just jumping on the Obama bash train that isn't the case. He seems likeable to me, genuine, and sincere. He wants us all to "get along". But we live in a world where few people " get along" and certainly not in the middle east. Over there, shit can happen at anytime, for any reason and you have to be prepared ahead of time and be able to respond in the best interests of the U.S. But, the president hasn't. Obama on one occasion said that Mubarek should leave now for the good of the country but then two days later he said there needed to be an orderly transition that could take some time. In the end he stayed out of it and did nothing.

Obama and his advisors needed to be all over this. Should we have supported Mubarek in his hour of need (after all we supported him and some would say propped him up for 30 years, so why not now?) or were we going to back the democracy push? President Obama essentially did neither. I sometimes get the feeling he just crosses his fingers and hopes it will all work out. The problem is he he doesn't want to take sides or risk upsetting people. Israel must be thinking (in fact several Israeli politicians have said so) is this President our friend?

Historically, Egypt has been Israels friend since the Sadat/Begin accords of 1980. A big part of Israel's security in the region has been because they have had Egypt's strength and influence on their side. Egypt, with the largest population of any country in Middle East is now up for grabs. Lurking in the weeds is the Muslim Brotherhood. What happens if the Muslim Brotherhood takes over? They've already said they would enact Sharia law and put in place institutional restrictions. This is shades of Iran under the Ayatollah in the late seventies. Right next door to Israel? That could be a complete disaster.

Look, I was no fan of Mubarek, a man too dumb to realize that as "king" of his own country he needed to take care of the people not harrass them, cheat them and do all the classic textbook things thugs do. He was a poor man's Hussein. He's cut from the same cloth as Hussein but without all of his open arrongance, the chemical murders, and the nerve to invade another middle eastern country like Hussein did in Kuwait (1991). Mubarek, however, did raid the country leaving office with hundreds of millions of dollars while the average Egyptian made less that 2 dollars a day. But the U.S. should have realized that at age 80 he wasn't going to last much longer and then what?

Obama seemed totally caught off guard. His advisors seem totally caught off guard. What did our security council and presidential advisors think? Apparently they didn't think about Egypt at all. The red phone rang and when President Obama answered he did the equivalent of a Bush sitting on the stool staring into space when told about 9/11. Okay, maybe not that bad but also not that far off either.

Mubarek is out okay...rejoice yeah democracy right? Wrong!! The military is in charge and the head of the Military Security is Omar Seuliman. He is the new "temporary" president. Who is Seuliman? He's the guy we have been outsourcing our torture cases too. That's right, when Obama took office he promised no more torture on American soil (that meant Cuba too) and he's kept his word but the torture goes on, the renditions continue. We sent them to Omar Seuliman and his thugs have been doing our dirty work.
The same Seuliman that is NOW in charge of Egypt. He's promised democratic elections in 6 months and I hope he delivers BUT in the meantime there lurks the Muslim Brotherhood. You know they will be busy the next 6 months. I wouldn't be surprised if in about 3-6 months Seuliman announces that it's too soon for free elections, that he will need another 6 months before free elections.
Where is President Obama on this now? Where will President Obama be during the next six months? I fear he will continue to "stay out of it". That isn't nearly enough. Israel's security must be preserved. Like it or not, our security in the region is tied to Israel. Are we going to tie our future to a man that willingly tortures people, heads up a repressive military and now has unlimited powers (remember there are NO checks and balances in Egypt). I hope the President has a better grip on things than this. Unfortunately I don't see that he does. When that red phone rings and it surely will in the next 18 months, I want to know that my President has a plan, and has the resolve to protect American interests.

Crossed Swords

OKAY BOWL
I won't write much about the Super Bowl because I have a newspaper article to write about but in general the Super Bowl commercials were good, and the game was pretty exciting. I reserve my pointed comments for (2) things. Having the "Glee" girl sing "America the Beautiful" was shamless promotion since the show "Glee" followed the Super Bowl (at least in the Midwest and East). So if "Two Men" were on right after the game we'd have seen Charlie Sheen boozing it up with 2 hookers? Did we need both "America the Beautiful" and then immediately after that the "Star Spangled Banner"? No, it was shamefacedly hucksterism. "STep right up and win a doll for your girl, 3 tosses for a dollar"!

Speaking of that Crhistina Aguilara's "National Anthem" was awful. Not only did she forget the fourth line and improvise by doing the second line again but her way of doing the song was way off. Don't singers understand the song is the thing. Most all of them do it like they are auditioning for American Idol, like it's about them. And do you have to scream yeah after every line as in:

what so proudly we hail, yeaaaaah,
at the twilights last gleaming, yeahhhh, ahhhh, ahhhhh
gave proof through the night, yeah,yeahhhhhahhhhh

Stop already with the Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, I've got gall stones screeching.
In short Christine Aguilar's version was as painful to sit through as it would have been watching a man wrestle a mongoose.

Now to my main (and serious) topic.
Did you see in the Union Tribune (although the picture came from the New York Times) today on page A4 the story about the monument that Iraq is going to repair? It's a huge pair of hands holding a sword in each hand. The swords are crossed. It's called the Victory Arch. Why is this significant? Because it was Saddam Hussein's personal monument. The hands are his and the swords are his!!!! The man they all wanted out is suddenly popular enough in Iraq to rebuild HIS monument, the one that was openly a statement of his power and control.

All that we have done for Iraq and they thank us by restoring the dictator's monument and memory! I'm sure all the parents of slain American soldiers will be outraged as well they should be. It's like after we defeated Germany in WWII; 3 years later the Germans put the swastika back on the government building.

I knew it, I've seen this before. When we left South Vietnam, the North immediately came down took over, and life went on. It's was as though the 10 years, countless millions of dollars and thousands of american dead was for nothing. This is a repeat.
When will they get it through their thick military skulls, that these countries at first want our help but they don't give a crap about America, American ideas or values. After they get our help they tell us to get the hell out and pave the way for a new dictator.

The day our last troop leaves, some new Hussein will be ready to take over and the "Victory Arch" will be in place and good to go. Pisses me off!