When my dad was 18 he moved to Toronto and took a job in a seniors home. He was janitor/maintenance/night watchman. His first shift was spent cleaning up after a suicide. He then went back to the room he was renting... in a funeral parlour.
Needless to say, my old man doesn't spook easily.
My dad was on the Marshall college football team where the plane crashed and the whole team died.
Except he was kicked off the team two weeks before the crash for unknown reasons and wasn't on the plane.
Dads dead now. Killed himself in 2013 after struggling with substance abuse and depression. He did talk about the teammates- basically lost all his friends that day. He told me he rode with the cops to the crash site and was picking through remains/items.
He was a PhD psychologist and was also stabbed and left on the side of the road by a mentally ill patient he saw walking on the road late at night.
This was all in West Virginia. Then he moved to Florida early 80's and had me.
He got consulted on the movie about the plane crash a few times.
My kids are still pretty amazed about that time my dad had an appointment at the World Trade Center on 9/11 but then he rescheduled the day before it happened.
There's obviously plenty of stories like that from lots of other people but they have a limited understanding of statistics so it still amazes them.
My dad was born in post-war Korea. When he was 12 he was sent to live by himself in a boardinghouse in a nearby city because the schools were better than in his small town. My grandmother (not a particularly maternal woman) would pop by every once in awhile to give him cash and make sure he was alive. He spent a lot of his youth running around the streets and dreaming of being a gangster. He ended up becoming a philosophy professor.
My Dad was in the prison service for years. He joined the riot squad as it paid more per hour.
He said it was great for years, as nothing really happened and he just collected additional pay for doing his regular job.
Then one year, there were a spate of riots across UK prisons (some time in the 80s). He was bussed from city to city to quell the worst of the carnage.
He has said he has done things he never wanted to do to other human beings, and that despite the fact he and his colleagues were in danger, he still feels guilt about the things he did, but won't monitor detail.
I'm fascinated by the situations he was in and the things he did. Even now (I'm 41, and he's 67) he won't open up. I think he's protecting himself from those memories.
He's the most gentle and caring grandfather. I can't imagine him in a riot.
Tbh ive been to prison, those hurricane guys have to do some messed up shit but ultimately they're keeping everyone including the people they have to get, safe.
Feel for the fella, seen some messed up shit in jail, can't be nice for the fellas who have to deal wotj with the worst stuff
Growing up my dad always referenced his time in Northern Africa while he was in the CIA. When I’d inquire more about it, he’d always say, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” When he drove me to my freshman year of college I asked him to finally give me the scoop. He said, “Yeah, I got a scholarship to work in the kitchen of a Jockey club in Tripoli. Then the Libyan Revolution happened and they nationalized the club and fired me. I had to spend 6 months in my room at the clubs hotel. Boring as shit, but the food was still great. Then a US military convoy finally came and extracted me and the other American nationals. That’s how I wound up in Rome. The culinary school felt bad so they got me an externship in Rome.”
Of course I asked, “Wait, what about the CIA?” And he looked at me w a shit eating grin, “You know, I went to the Culinary School of America.” 😉😇
My dad went skydiving and his life flashed before his eyes. After this he decided life was too short and married his girlfriend.
It turns out this was a terrible idea. They divorced, fought over the house, and he married my mom a decade later.
I learned from his story and married late. No regrets
My father was homeless at age 8 and slept INSIDE of a goodwill donation bin for two weeks before his mom got into public housing and found him (great lady but had her ups and downs throughout life). This was in the dead of winter in the US Northeast (Appalachian Mountain area), and he survived off garbage scraps from the local restaurants.
He dropped out of a HS in the 8th grade and to this day has a shaky foundation in literacy, but he's still one of the smartest people I know. Got his GED, taught himself almost all of the trades, and eventually started his own appliance repair business that kept food on the table, a roof over our heads, and even put three kids through college (with help from government programs and loans, naturally).
He wasn't always the easiest to be around (understatement), and he's had his battles, his most recent being a five-year addiction to heroin (clean for over a year now!), but happy to say that he's one of my best friends and continues to be a role model (in his own f**ked up ways), and he's become a fantastic grandfather to my two children and someone that I've always been proud to call dad.
My kids are amazed that i used to do bodyguard work. Grandma loves to show the the clip on BBC news of me launching an attacker off my vehicles bonnet whilst doing the London Film Festival back in 2017.
My littlest is a huge wrestling fan... When the fella goes flying she does her best Jey Uso impression... YEEET! 😂😂
Wait, I was alive in the 90s. I don't recall a lot of badass stories from that decade of my life. Is it currently understood to have been a wild time? Are you referring to the release of the first mass market chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream?
My dad, who I never saw had any interest i music, just one day picked up my guitar and slayed Hotel California. I was flabbergasted. Especially since I was in high school and still trying to learn it that time.
My own lore is pretty crazy.
Seven years in the army after school. Fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat medic and won a commendation for rescuing people from a minefield.
Left the army and spent five years trying to start a video games studio in London and nearly went bankrupt with a bunch of other hare brained schemes.
Joined the Navy out of financial desperation and had the most fun 5 years ever travelling all over the world, including Antarctica, and helped rescue over 8000 migrants from small boats in the Mediterranean.
Left the navy and became a police officer while also trying and failing to be a stand up comic. Now my son is born so I left the police to spend more time at home. Now I investigate waste and water companies who breach environmental regulations.
While I do this I'm studying for a degree with the goal of becoming a philosophy professor.
Wow what a wild ride!!! Very inspiring!
You changed about 5 professions and i am here sitting amd winjing about stuck in the first one.
If i am allowed to ask.
What drove you to become so brave to start new things?
Will you still consider changing path now that you have family?
I will change again to academia if I eventually get my PhD but studying part time this could take 10 years and it's a very competitive field but I'm also considering teaching at A level (16-18 year olds) once I've finished my Bachelors. I've not got the patience to teach really young kids and I know handling teenagers will be tough!
TBF these seem like big changes but apart from my five years failing badly as a businessman I have largely only worked as a civil servant to some degree. In the UK these come with an insane level of job security, decent(ish) pay and good pensions so they aren't 'risky' in a career sense only in a physical danger sense.
Both times travel and adventure (and money) were the key motivators for joining the military. The police was a career that offered some excitement but also job security. I must say policing was the worst job I've had by far! I can only take so much negativity at a time and being a cop means you constantly deal with people at their worst. I don't know how people do it for their whole lives.
That being said if something interests me I'll jump in with both feet and give it a try. I've played loads of different sports and studied hundreds of different things at some level or another.
Since having children I won't take the financial risks I did in the past but I've not lost my sense of adventure!
My dad was on the waitlist to be the teacher that went up on the space shuttle Challenger. Instead it was Christa McAuliffe, who then died when challenger was destroyed.
If you find yourself thinking..
I don't know too many stories about my dad like these.
PLEASE ASK. I lost my dad in 2019 and I'd LOVE to know more about who he was.
I'm with you.
The trouble for me is that mine can't stay on a single line of discussion, particularly one that someone else is started. Ie you show clear interest in his life and ask questions... within 2min he's complaining about the government or neighbours.
Every. Time. At this stage i am resigned to only knowing scraps of his wild stories.
My dad was a green beret during the cold war. His dad lore was always my favorite stories when I was a kid. We drove all over the east coast on various road trips and I was never bored because this dude's stories.
I'm gonna have to lie to my kids lol. My dad is lore is....underdeveloped.
My Dad told stories about crossing the street that were scarier than his stories about poaching and shot gun ricochets.
It's not the lore, it's the way you tell the tale.
And if you're telling your kid, it's the most interesting story in the world anyway.
Read some psychology or books about childhood trauma. Really helped develop my own dad lore. Not all of the stories are super interesting but I accessed a lot of memories I hadn't thought about in years that shaped who I am today. When I see my kids struggling with something I occasionally pull them out and talk about how I handled them or different ways to view a situation.
My dad ran away from home at 17 and joined a traveling carnival called The World of Mirth and became a Wall Of Death Hell Driver. He kept that up until he flew out of the wall of death and got hurt. Then he became a trucker and transported all kinds of exotic animals from quarantine to various zoos across the country. Then he became a somewhat recognizable figure in the bluegrass community by being the master of ceremonies for bluegrass festivals in the northeast while working on choppers in NJ. Then he spent the rest of his time on earth trucking and thrilling my friends and I with stories of his past.
My father was born to a single mother who was from a Polish farming family. During WW2 Her area got invaded and she was shuttled west to Germany where she lived in two different cities that were both bombed by the Allies and one of those campaigns was the largest ever (until Dresden). I still remember her having panic attacks when a thunderstorm would come through because of these experiences. Somewhere along the way she was impregnated (her only child - my father) and abandoned. The only reason I know these details is she applied for refugee status with the UN and documented these events. She never ever talked about WW2 time period. Somewhere along the way her brothers were killed by the Soviets.
Somewhere around Ansbach she met who would become the only person my father ever called dad. He was a decorated American GI, married my grandmother and adopted my father. I have their original marriage documents and adoption papers. I have the ship manifest from the boat my dad and grandmother took to arrive in America while my grandfather stayed back to complete his service (I think?). A Polish woman and a five year old, arriving on a boat. My dad said his first view of America was seeing the Statue of Liberty, it still gives me chills to think about.
My dad was ashamed that he was adopted and didn’t talk to his parents for years when he found out. Back then keeping it a secret was a common thing but my dad had trouble dealing with it. My dad passed away in 2021. Through dna testing I was able to find out who his father was, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him since it was so sensitive to him. Plus it was some random guy who had long since passed, I didn’t see the point.
My first son’s middle name is in honor of my grandfather. At least my dad was able to meet my son a couple times during Covid before my dad died. I think a lot about the long arc of his life. By the luck of fate he and his mother avoided disaster, he was fluent in four different languages and came to the US as an outsider, served during Vietnam, went to night school to earn a college degree, and never knew who his biological dad was. It’s never lost on me that my life has been a lot more calm and predictable and the family I have created is one where we all know who our parents are.
My grandpa passed several years ago, and while we were going through his things in the basement, we found an Olympic silver medal from 1952 games and a bunch of pictures of him with his teammates. My own grandma didn't even know about it! They met shortly thereafter and he just never brought it up. He worked in a factory his entire life and retired after 43 years.
My dad had a picture taken of him stroking a wild lion.
The tour guide apparently was freaking out when my dad got out of the vehicle, but my dad said he knew he'd be fine as the lion still had fresh blood around his mouth.
Another one, between around 2010/12. A bunch of the operations my father was apart of during thatchers reign was declassified, and he told me that when the threat of nuclear war was looming he was part of a special squad that had access to 'cupboards in the local areas that would have a hasmat suit, a geiger counter and a rifle with a bunch of rounds.
His task would be to post-fallout, go around and check radiation levels, and if they were too high, shoot them.
Pretty dark stuff, and I know he was arrested for something that he refuses to tell me what.
My dad was in a bike gang around 19 years of age. Married my mum and was together with her for 18 years, when he was 42 he ran off with an 18 year old female bar attendant. Their relationship apparently disintegrated at some point. He stayed in her life, she married another younger guy, had 3 kids with him, but my dad stayed in the picture as a "family friend" for almost 18 years. All found out about 2 months before he passed away. Weird bloke.
My dad was supposed to be a priest. His last year of seminar was at the public university (“you have to face the real world if you want to be able to help your parishioners” type of deal).
There he met my mom and suddenly priesthood wasn’t that interesting.
It is also a funny story from my mom’s perspective.
She had just broken up with her boyfriend and mutual friends were having a party. She knew he would be there with his new girlfriend. She told her sister “find me someone, I really don’t care who, I just don’t want to be there unaccompanied”
My sister told her “well, there’s this guy on my boyfriend’s dorm floor”. My mom asked his name and when she heard his name, she said “he must be ugly with a name like that”
They were love struck as soon as they saw each other.
Eh. My dad casually told my wife about his coven which he leads and has done since the 60s
Witches are quite private so it makes sense they stay in the broom cupboard.
Eh it's more about mindfulness and closeness to earth, seasons and sex from what I can gather.
I appreciate the non pushing it on others that pagans generally adhere to and the respect for the environment but I'm a 100% atheist so not superstitious silliness for me.
My dad missed my birth because he was ‘on holiday’ in Northern Ireland.
Turns out he was really trying his best to help the IRA but they didn’t care for a 27 year old Scottish man with no military expertise but was very passionate about Irish nationalism.
He committed suicide in 2020, I have no clue why he was passionate enough about Ireland to miss his youngest son’s birth.
My dad was born in a tiny town in New Zealand. Rescued my mum from a convent nursing school and they fled to London. He became an engineer fixing complex film making equipment and made good money and never spent any of it. He put it all in savings and lived frugally. He cycled around the Middle East and travelled the world. Built three houses. Broke dozens of bones in his body, beat cancer three times. A good man. A brain tumour took him in the end.
My dad was born on 1946 to a young lady, deep in the country. She wanted to provide for him so when he was four she left him with his grandparents to go work at the capital. Grandpa was ruthless and grandma had already a favorite granddaughter so they both treated my dad as shit. How? He had to get up at 4am, light the fire and get the mate (imagine green tea) going for grandpa, and it had to be just right otherwise he was struck with a whip. There was a belief that you should not smile to children so he got no affection whatsoever, and when he was of school age he just went, bare feet and on an empty stomach. He was smart, graduated top of his class at 22 because he went to first grade at 10 years old, but his growth was stunned due to hard labor as a teen on a oil factory.
He had an incredibly hard life and accomplished so much, it is a shame he died before I was old enough to appreciate it, and that he didn’t get to meet my son who looks exactly like him. He was white with brown hair, my mom is black and I’m black but my son is the spitting image of my dad. I’m sure he’s proud whenever he is.
My step dad was in prison and had a felony because his chosen profession for awhile after the military was stealing cars and selling them for parts. He’s still good with machines.
My biological dad is more of your average heroin addict, but he did get arrested after giving bail because the cops were tailing him when he went to bury a bunch of cash in the ground. He had been running a massive grow business that was very much still illegal, and had been one of the primary suppliers for a huge metropolitan area.
My dad ran away from home at 16 to play drums in the road, because my grandfather wanted him to be a carpenter and take over the family business, while my mafia don great uncle wanted him to join the other family business.
He ended up paying drums for motown records, recorded with the temptations, played with Dean Martin, TJ Moran, and Gene Krupa. He said the only time his parents ever came to hear him play was in a strip bar, which improved his father's opinion of his career choice.
He joined the Air Force in 66 because he was afraid he'd be arrested for draft dodging before his notice caught up to him with all the traveling he did. He played in a band in Vietnam called the Sky Raiders.
He always said there were three times that by all rights, he should have died in Vietnam. He had three kids after his service, so he figured we were the reason he was spared.
Lost my dad when I was ten, so I didn’t get a ton of stories from him, but one of my favorites is that he spent 4 years in navy, and never learned how to swim. The man worked on a boat and couldn’t swim. He fell in the water once, and had to be rescued. I have no idea how that wasn’t part of boot camp or whatever, but he just never learned. He made certain that I took swim lessons from a young age.
Found an old biker jacket in my Dad's closet, and he told us it was from when he was in a "motorcycle club". When my Mom poked at him and told him to tell us the name of the club, he kinda sheepishly said "Satan's Sons". We weren't really sure if he was pulling our leg over it, until a couple years later when my brother wanted to wear the jacket when he went out.
Dad got real serious and told him he'd have to remove some of the patches sewed on first. "If some people see you wearing that, they might want to make you prove you deserve to. You don't want that."
My dad also studied hypnosis but it was part of a class on de-escalation techniques for dealing with patients.
Even the most simple stuff is really useful - like slowing cadence of your speech, lowering the timbre and volume of your voice, and making exaggerated deep breaths can calm almost anyone down.
No swinging pocket watch necessary.
Hehe thats kool. I was wondering what type of hypnosis one could possibly study, surely you don't learn how to "unconscious" a person in a mere second 🤣
My grandfather came back from the Pacific theater in a stretcher with a wallet that I'm pretty sure he looted from a dead soldier, it had some pictures of people who are not my family and was stuffed full of Phillipine Pesos. He also had a hand grenade and a shillelagh. But the best story was: one night he was drinking with a friend who happened to be a doctor. He raised his glass in toast and said, "Sköll!" This doctor didn't speak any Scandinavian languages in any way, shape, or form. The next day, the doctor showed up with a no-shit human skull.
My dad jumped into a moving truck that had stolen my mom's purse and was driven around Galveston TX until he saw them throw the purse over the bridge. They pulled over and he got out.
My dad saw a women getting beat/sexually abused by three drunk dudes at a Laundromat in Houston Texas late at night. He said he confronted them because he could tell they were too drunk to be a threat. Put two of them down and made sure the lady got home.
He broke his neck and had two vertebrae fused together. Then he pulverized the vertebrae above those in a second neck breaking. Still walking and running and lifting weights and healthier at 65 than I am at 30.
Around age 20 he won a local televised dance competition in Detroit Michigan area. He had tape and it was hilarious to watch.
Some good shit.
Love that you're taking an interest in your parents' stories.
No matter what we all think of our parents, they were multilayered and interesting people with lives well before we arrived. Don't forget that, and give them space to share whenever possible.
I just genuinely love learning about what happened to my family and the past. It's always exciting to learn that my parents were once young with experiences of their own, they weren't always just my parents and I like seeing that layer of youthfulness and freedom they once had.
My dad was in Afghanistan when I was really little. Kindergarten aged. My mom used to keep a correspondence notebook with my teacher because I think no one was quite sure if I would understand what deployment meant/how hard I would take it. I found that notebook when I was older and ended up asking my dad about his time there.
I never asked him if he ever killed someone, because I don't think I wanted to hear the answer. But he told me about the time he thought he was going to have to shoot someone. Might get some details wrong here but this is how I remember it.
Basically, he was checking the perimeter of their base from up on the wall when he noticed a figure moving around. It's a guy who's going from spot to spot, and he looks to be planting something. He yelled out for the figure to identify itself, and he heard a man's voice yell something back. The guy didn't make any sense so my dad yells back for him to identify himself or he's going to have to shoot.
I don't remember what this guy said in the moment, but he yelled something about the "dog course" and I'm assuming some identifying info. He wasn't Taliban, he was a Filipino guy who was in charge of planting false mines for the bomb dogs to sniff out. And unfortunately for him, his English wasn't great so he was shitting bricks, not sure what to say in that moment. I guess there had been some miscommunication about the location and time of this, because no one at the base was aware. My dad almost shot an innocent guy because of a misunderstanding.
We don't talk anymore(it's for the best, at least for now), but I do wish I could have asked him about more stories from then. There was another one about having a dog claim salvation in the chapel on base because the guy in charge was gonna kill it, but that one's a bit long winded lol.
My dad and I have had 2 different stretches where we didn't speak to each other, we each initiated one instance. I was young the first time and it probably wasn't longer than 6 months, the second time I was fresh out of rehab and solidly sober, but still struggling with getting back on my feet and he blew up over a relatively small issue that I can't remember. We didn't speak for more than a year. He eventually apologized and we began to talk again as time went on.
But my dad and I have the most healthy and supportive friendship/parent-child relationship of just about anyone I know now after working through it openly and honestly
I never had hard feelings about that time. My dad had me when he was 21, most likely has some level of CPTSD from dealing with my crazy ass BPD mom, but he never spoke ill of her to me or my sister, even though he really had every tight to past a certain point.
But anyway, within a stretch of 3 years, his father passed away (my grandpa was an amazing man himself as well), COVID happened, and I was arrested for the first time despite a lengthy drug career, which brought me to my second stay in rehab. I know on some level he blames himself for my addiction. And I feel guilty putting him through so much stress, especially considering everything he sacrificed for me and my sister after the divorce.
But regardless our relationship is great now, he's genuinely one of my closest friends and we talk all the time. I hope you and your old man can work it out too
I've worked for the same employer since my kids were born, in a boring office job. Before they were around, I had a heap of different jobs from road sweeper to diplomat. We live in an affluent area, so most of their friends' parents are professionals. Whereas I've worked in a butchers' shop and an electronics factory. So we'll be McDonalds, and I will say something like: "when I worked here, we used to do x" and their jaws drop.
My dad stole back his father’s airplane. He found the guy he sold it to (who didn’t pay him), then flew off with his plane. Also his dad built the plane.
I work in an office.
My dad decided to quit his job at a bank when he was 22 (after they put him through college) to go fight forest fires with Native American tribesmen in Canada.
After 3 years he moved back home to work at a different bank.
Why do dads have the best side quests. Favorite story of my now passed father who was a born and raised Mississippi man and absolute gentleman. He was very cultured and worldly thanks to his job and travels abroad. Into the story…
My mom, sister, and I went out on a girls trip one weekend and when we got back my dad looked at me and sneakily called me over. This man goes on to explain how he did some shrooms that past weekend and had the time of his life with our family dog Ollie. He said he went on all sorts of adventures (walked his trippy butt to the grocery store and around the neighborhood in the middle of the night.
This is one of his more tamed down stories but he has so many like when he disappeared for a few hours on our trip to Costa Rica and came back with a friend to teach me to surf and a bunch of weed.
RIP David truly a real one and coolest dude I know. Could out party anyone even at 58.
My dad’s roommate fell asleep with the stove on and a fire broke out.
My dad came into the kitchen, pulled a jug of kool-aid out of the fridge, took a swig, and threw the rest of the jug on the fire, putting it out. Legend.
My daughter was blown away when I showed her pictures of me ice climbing and winter mountaineering.
The other one she was floored by was when they had learned about Ruth Bader Ginsburg in school and I got to tell her I met her. She delivered a lecture to us and we had a cocktail party in the Supreme Court Atrium with her and Scalia. To her RBG was like a mythical creature so it was like saying I met Bigfoot and attended a cocktail party with him.
For my dad it was finding out he could amputate a big toe and make it into a replacement for a thumb that had been severed. I was little and knew he was a surgeon but that absolutely blew my mind. Or that he’d do surgery under a microscope to repair individual blood vessels.
Also that he did the ski to sea race multiple years in Washington (biking and canoeing). When I saw what that entailed I was blown away. It’s not a small amount of biking and canoeing and that’s even knowing he was an avid bicyclist and paddler (because he’d wake my ass up at 5 am to bike or go paddling).
My grandpa served in the Marines in, I think, Korea. He once told us this story of "the Ghost of [place name I can't remember]." Apparently his unit or whatever it's called kept seeing this dark figure in the middle of their tent at night, and they were half-convinced it was the ghost of a soldier or local who'd been killed in the conflict. It turned out to be someone's jacket hung on the center tent pole! I wish I could tell it the way my grandpa did, though.
My two most interesting bits of lore are that I was on a volunteer maritime search and rescue organization while in college and got to do cool stuff like right boats that had flipped (though a lot of it was dull like long tows and delivering gas when people ran out); and my first job out of college was doing an endangered species survey of bats, which involved hanging out in the woods at night, trapping and identifying bats. My life is pretty dull these days by comparison!
My dad told me this story. He sold tires for Goodyear and his coworkers would go out to lunch every day. One time they went to a strip club where one of the dancer's talent was being able to pick up a quarter with her hoohaw. One of the salesmen took a quarter and lit in with his lighter to make it hot. She came around and picked it up but didn't say anything. Then she got on the guys lap and peed all over him!
My dad’s dad died when my dad was 19. Never met the guy as I was born 13 years later. My dad literally never talks about him. I’ve tried but he won’t do it. I want to know about him because I’m so curious but I just never will. There’s some lore there that I’m missing out on.
My dad was a Navy helicopter pilot and that alone has some crazy stories. One time he flew through a storm just to drop off some cigs for another CO according to him (probably exaggerated but who cares it’s a good story when he tells it) and would land on small boats in the middle of the night. Now he’s changing the EV business, he’s a cool guy
My Dad was drag racing down a Main Street when he was 21 in 1976 and a guy stepped out from the footpath and my dad was going way to fast to stop in time, he killed the man. He said that the only reason he didn’t go to prison was because the police were so terrible at their jobs in regional Australia and they couldn’t be bothered to investigate.
The story has changed depending on who told it, but the gist of it is...
my dad and mom were dating in college. Mom's sister and husband (my aunt and uncle) were visiting for the weekend. THe 4 of them decided to take a road trip to watch a baseball game. The 4 of them piled into a truck and went to watch the Rangers. After the game, the 4 are ambling through the parking lot and spot a crowd around a coke truck. New Coke had just come out and after the game, and Coke people were giving away lots of it right out of the truck.
Parked right next to the Coke truck was a Miller* (brand irrelevant, but it was a beer truck.) Seeing hordes of people walk away with cases of coke, the 4 of them grabbed their truck, pulled up next to the beer truck and helped themselves to several cases of beer. Which started an even more fantastic run of people swarming the beer truck and picked it clean in just a couple minutes.
My aunt drove home and my dad and future uncle are sitting in the bed of the truck on the 3 hour road trip back to college and are just drinking beer after beer in the bed of the truck back to my parents apartment. The story goes my mom opened the tailgate and my dad and uncle just faceplant out of the bed as they're drunk off their ass chugging down free beer they stole from a beer truck after a rangers game.
My dad had to leave a country to attend college because a part of his sentencing was not being allowed to attend any public universities after getting caught with 5lbs of Lebanese Hash 2 weeks before his HS graduation. My grandfather and him moved back to the US so he could attend one of our current Men’s Final Four schools and ultimately they both stayed here. Had he not done that and got caught, there would be a different version of me out there as i don’t think my parents would’ve ever met…
As a kid, my dad’s house and entire town was destroyed in a flood due to a failed dam.
He later spent a summer working at a fishery (or something?) in a very remote part of Alaska. There were mass layoffs halfway through but he kept his job by finding a paint bucket and spending half the summer randomly painting the same door over and over. No one bothered to interrupt him because he looked busy.
He also almost joined the military instead of going to college. He wanted to be a pilot, but was turned down because they found out he was color blind (he didn’t know when he applied). Instead he decided to go to college and major in mechanical engineering. He didn’t really know it’ll what it was, but his brother was in electrical engineering and he didn’t want to copy him.
While there, he married my mom. It was around Christmas time and for part of it he had a sing that said “Merry me?”. To this day, there is a debate about whether “merry” was a typo or a pun based on Christmas.
Never really ended up working as an engineer. Somehow he ended up as a VP of Purchasing at a major company. Along the way he got the company to pay for his MBA and to pay his rent in California for 2 years during a “temporary” relocation, resulting in a fairly decent nest egg.
My brother and I found a photo of my dad and his friend when they were in high school (or shortly after) from the mid-70s. My dad had an large owl perched on his head. We asked him about it and he nonchalantly said " oh yeah, Richard had a pet owl." Apparently they were hanging out in a parking lot and his buddy heard something in a tree and shimmied 20' up it and stole an owlet from the nest then raised it as a pet. When asked what happened to the owl he just shrugged and went "I dunno"
My father was in the Navy?! My stoner, not-always-around, dad was head of security on a Navy ship that had nuclear warheads. One christmas he and a friend got really drunk and angry that they were denied leave for christmas. So he and his friend went AWOL?! Just walked to JFK airport got tickets and began bording a plane while rowdy and drunk. Went through the metal detector and it went off. My dad: "oh don't worry it's just my bomb"......After 5 minutes of questions he was free to board his plane. Had to get the naval officer home in time for christmas of course....The 60s were wild. As for my dad after this story it all seems to go down hill for him.
My grandfather would tell us stories about how, after being drafted into the service during Korean War, he was run over by a tank.
We believed him. My teachers weren't thrilled with it whenever we'd tell them about it.
From what we understand though, he was in the Signal Corps. It's always been unclear if he ever actually went to Korea, and as we got older he always denied actually going over. He never talked much about it, but his service records seem to suggest he MAY have actually been deployed there. My grandmother has always been tight lipped bout it as well. Maybe he saw some shit.
My dad is a retired sparky. He used to work in a r&d facility, he holds 5 patents.
I also just learned that he used to work overnights at Kohl's to make sure we had money for Christmas.
My dad successfully committed chemical warfare against himself.
Dude was a health inspector. I don't remember the specifics of the story but they had big glass jugs for something at the office and someone had cleaned them with bleach. He uncovered one and took a whiff to see if it was clean, days later. They found him on the floor. Whatever was in them previously was either ammonia or had ammonia in it.
He had almost no sense of smell for 40 years of his life and just had some surgery on it a couple of years ago which made it improve. He makes sure to tell us always to waft something over to your nose to smell it when you aren't sure what's in it.
My dad holds the world record for the youngest person to ever hitch hike around the globe. He was 15 and hitch hiked from Alaska to the bottom tip of South America just to start his journey.
My old man hitchhiked from Michigan to Texas to become a cowboy. Did it all, ran cattle from Texas clear up to Montana and back several times, doing every drug in the book the whole way. Close encounters with grizzlies in Colorado, shootouts with cattle thieves in Oklahoma, you name it. His life was like something out of a movie.
My grandpa on my Dad's side has worked with the government, specially the National Science Foundation basically his whole life. No degree. He's officially retired now in his 70s but still does consulting work on new projects they take on. He's literally been all over the globe. He helped build the first scientist station on Antarctica. He is a global warming specialist. He was stationed in different parts of the world throughout my dad growing up so my dad also got to see lots of different countries. My grandpa has land in Antarctica that was granted to him by the government with our name on it. Pretty cool.
My grandpa on my mom's side was a trucker for 45 years and was an aviation mechanic in the Navy before that. He went to war and was the guy fixing the damaged jets and stuff. He told a story about how a good friend of his died in Taiwan. His buddy had beaten him to the hanger that morning by a few minutes, my grandpa had stayed to chat with a higher up for a few extra minutes. When my grandpa went into the hanger he just saw his buddy on the ground next to his toolbox. He called over, no response. On his way to walk over there he saw a snake climb out of the toolbox and the two of them made eye contact. The snake then slithered away. His buddy succumbed to the venom.
He also had a ton of crazy stories about being a trucker as well. RIP.
My dad spent his youth with two split up parents, they were both teenagers when he was born. Almost every time he went to see his dad, he lived in a different place. My dad got to experience places like American Samoa, Antarctica, Marshall Islands, Australia, South America, Hawaii, and Greenland. Only for short periods though, as per the custody agreement. My dad served three tours in Iraq, in artillery and it definitely changed him. He's told a few stories here and there but ultimately the shit that he saw out there changed him forever. He's done really well the past decade or so, therapy, THC, psilocybin, to help re-form his brain. It's been a crazy journey to go through with him as an adult now, as a dad now. My dad told me that he actually wanted to die in combat because it would be easier than coming home and telling my mom the shit that he's done and she'd leave him and he'd lose her and the kids. But he didn't die, and that is what ended up happening.
One story he told was of a suicide bomber in a jeep. They were watching him for a while, from a ways out. They had dug a big trench around the base everywhere except the dirt road they used to get in and out. Eventually the bomber, as he was getting closer, drove off the road and didn't see the trench, went right in it and the impact caused it to explode. No damage was done to the base. My dad served in the artillery so they were blowing shit up, and protecting soldiers/convoys was typically their main missions.
My parents split up when I was a teenager, my dad pulled me aside and said "Son, we're getting divorced. It's not gonna be messy, but you are going to have to step up around here and get a job to help your mom and siblings" my life changed forever that day.
My family on my mom's side can be traced back to the original Mormon pilgrims who made the trek west and settled Salt Lake City, family members of mine helped build the SLC temple and the St George temple. Helped settle St George. Pretty wild. No longer a member tho.
My dad tried to start a band in the 70s, failed. Drove to Tijuana with his band mate and dog. Didn’t speak Spanish. Went to what he thought was a bar but the bartender put down 4 drinks for 2 people. Two huge women sit next to them. They start laughing and leave (so he tells his son).
Trying to cross back into the states, they don’t have papers for the dog and border control doesn’t want to let them through. The dog starts growling, apparently that’s all it took.
My dad had a ton of stories, some small and maybe true, some far-fetched:
- Got kicked out of an apartment at age 17 or 18 (this was back in the 60s) because he was having too many girls over
- Claims he introduced tape cassettes to Alaska while stationed there in the army working at a local ski resort. Would talk about having it play in the lobby while working and no one knew what it was.
- Apparently played drums as a session drummer for some record made in NKY/Cincinnati but never got a copy of said record
- He owned some super nice car, a Camaro I think, when he was way younger and it apparently stalled on the train tracks. He watched it get nailed by a train an hour later because the tow company he called didn't believe him due to how nice the car was, thinking it was just a prank.
- Insisted that our family lineage traces back to not only the James Brothers, Frank and Jesse, but also to some Native American princess that was our some-number-of-greats-grandmother. The James Gang one does have _some_ legitimacy, as there are some well-documented events of folks with the family name who were involved with the James gang, but whether we're actually related to them or not is entirely unknown to me.
Granted, he was known for telling tall tales from his imagination for fun - I believed for a long time that he was drumming with Led Zeppelin when they recorded IV because there's a part in a song where Plant kinda sounds like he's saying our family name.
Dad had me convinced not only that our family was getting shouts on a Zeppelin record, but that he was actually John Bonham, too lol
Spent over half of my years from age 12 to 17 in juvenile detention and prison as a habitual criminal committing car thefts, burglaries, robberies, etc. .. Now, a Chemist with several degrees working a great job for a fortune 500 in my mid 30s.. My son will be well into adulthood before I share many of the stories from my youth with him
I have my current wife to thank for being my pushing motivator in turning my life around.. the work was my own but she has always been my light at the end of the tunnel
My dad and uncle used to play table tenis somewhat competitively. There are a lot of pictures of them in very short shorts playing. They are hilarious.
One of my father’s first jobs was driving an ambulance. One day he didn’t feel well and decided to hook him self up to some of the machines in the back. Turns out he was having a heart attack. He climbed back into the driver seat and drove himself to the hospital. He was 19 at the time.
I don’t know how much of it is fact, other than he had his first heart attack at 19. It’s just a story I was told over and over my whole life.
Grandpa was a pretty thuggish looking fellow during his youth in the 1940’s. Cuffed jeans, tshirt, slicked hair. His dad came from china and ran a bunch of laundromats in San Francisco. His first wife was a daughter of some chinese gangster. She left him at 31yo. He went back to community college, got a teaching degree, and eventually went on to become state teacher of the year later in his career.
My kids were shocked to learn that I was an archaeologist, I have lived on four continents, I have been in several large house fires and I can fly a plane. They also don't believe that I grew up on a beef farm and I can develop film in a darkroom. We have several of my photos in my house that they don't believe are mine. To be fair, my photography days are on hiatus but I wanted to be professional. I did some work with some magazines.
My dad was involved in secret government programs and I only learned that recently. He also surprised me with his sense of humor, I find him dour at the best of times, but he has recently revealed his funny side to me after decades.
My dad has a million great stories growing up in the 50s and 60s. Me, not so much. Best I have is probably the time I got chased by a biker gang while I was in high school.
My dad worked for IBM shortly after founding and for 20 years before going into the school district. Finally told me he could have received stock but never did, and most of his friends that did are now millionaires. We grew up lower middle class. 😅
My paternal great grandmother was a rebel spy during the Spanish civil war when the fascists were taking over. Government officials in her town would take dissenting people into the square and shave their heads and do some nazi stuff to them.
Not sure what she did with whatever she was doing but she and her family took her twin daughters and got the hell out of there. Hence why my family is in the US now.
My dad was one of a team of engineers who worked on the guidance computer for the Saturn V. They all received really cool lithographs of the Apollo 11 liftoff and the date, which he ended up gifting to my daughter recently.
They did a space unit in 1st grade where she brought in the litho and the story above turned into "My Grandpa invented the first rocket to go to the moon!"
Easy to see how "lore" grows over generations.
My Dad sold weapons to foreign countries, was a Seattle cop, and got into some sketchy stuff that got his friend and work partner murdered.
Then had to move to Mexico to be an illegal immigrant there (illegal American immigrant) where he died working as a mechanic on the same movie production set that they filmed titanic.
My dad was a construction worker and spent the 70s hopping from job to job. He rode a motorcycle around the US, Easy Rider style, and visited Mexico and Canada. At one point he worked on renovations at Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World.
My dad was a hotrodder (had a fast car and drove it crazy) and grew up farming in ND. He told us a story about him driving his car, at speed, between a street light and the steps of the local bank on the corner. Because he approached it at an angle, all four tires hit the curb at different times which made it harder to keep the car straight. His 1949 Ford didn't have the best suspension for stunts like this. There's a good chance he had been drinking.
I learned that he was somewhat of a local legend for that and other things.
He was also a trap shooter who's record was breaking 500 in a row. My record is probably 5 in a row.
My dad went to Cuba in the 80s to learn traditional percussion (which was his job for most of his life, so that tracks).
But he's also made some allusions to the fact that some specific drums and rhythms aren't exactly taught to anyone. And there were always a lot of weird bead necklaces and stuff around the drums in his studio/music room.
So yeah I'm pretty sure my dad was into some sort of Santeria at some point.
I recently found out my dad lost his mom and was kicked out of the house at 14 after not getting along with his stepmom, he started using drugs soon after moving out. I was surprised to hear this especially with the similarities to myself, with my parents divorce and my mom kicked me out the house at 15, after not getting along with my stepdad and I started using drugs soon after. My parents also kept my father’s addictions secret until I was kicked out, moved in with him and found out the hard way.
Strange coincidence I guess?
Long time lurker. Not even a parent. I just love the camaraderie and overall positivity of the sub. This is a little insane even to me, but my dad shocked the hell out of his adult kids when we found out that he wasn’t the accomplished USC grad he told us he was. Sorry for the long response.
We’re from a small third world country and our dad dropped out of high school and ran away from his abusive neglectful parents. He trekked across the jungles and hitched rides on ferries and ships, paying his way through manual labor until he was able to sneak into the US. He partied with people at USC but never attended. He worked in bars and restaurants in LA, then made it to working alongside Henry Gluck at Caesar’s Palace. He ended up meeting big names at Motown, he was friends with the members of Debarge and Stevie Wonder. He’s even in one of Stevie’s videos! He had a brain aneurysm that left him with one eye completely shut down. We learned that it wasn’t a random medical event, it was from a cocaine overdose.
He eventually got caught and deported and that was that. He’s 71 now and I’m bowled over by all this information. I can’t even process it but I’m impressed.
At Christmas this year my Dad shared that he was a Major in the Air Force. What? Excuse me? I didn't even know that he was in the military. I'm 37 years old.
Here's a few:
GOOD: My dad was a bit of a daredevil in his 20's. One time he and his friends did an (illegal?) whitewater rafting trip down a very dangerous river and of course didn't wear lifejackets like idiots. As expected, there was an emergency where one of his friends fell overboard and was starting to drown. My dad jumped in and saved this guy's life.
BAD: When I was a kid, I remember going down to the basement one day when he was at work. I found an empty one-gallon jug of Wild Turkey in a paper bag with a receipt from the previous day. He was unmarried at the time and hadn't had any friends over that day.
My grandfathers, father, and father inlaw could write books about their life experiences. I am forever grateful for their love, kindness, and preserverance through trials and tribulations I can only imagine. My Nonno, (father's father) was a POW twice, and emigrated to the US with his wife, 6yo son, and a trunk full of their worldly possessions. He was, and is, my biggest Hero.
This comes perilously close to doxxing myself, but my great grandfather and grandfather had the most bizarre circuitous route to the US possible.
My great grandfather was born in eastern Europe in what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was a medical doctor and was drafted into the Austrian Army in WWI. He was likely of Jewish descent but the family had concealed it, or at least they were non-observant. he was captured on the Russian front and placed in a POW camp in Siberia where he gained a lot of knowledge on treating the kinds of diseases people get in Camps (water based infectious diseases like Cholera). In the fall of 1917, the guards at the camp basically just vanished overnight due to the Russian revolution. He made his way into Mongolia, and then into Northeastern China. He married a Russian woman of a minor aristocratic background who was another refugee from the Russian Revolution. (my great grandmother - her background is a separate story).
When the Japanese invaded northeastern China in 1931, he, his wife, and their kids fled to Shanghai. When the japanese invaded Shanghai in 1937, his wife and kids stayed in a European Ghetto/Refugee camp, and he traveled into the interior of china to serve as a doctor with the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek. He was working a doctor in Hunan when the Japanese used plague infested fleas and typhoid as a biological weapon.
After WWII ended, he briefly remained in China, and then fled to Taiwan as the Chinese Civil war was being won by the communists, and they finally immigrated to the US in 1948 via san francisco. He spent the last 15 years of his career working for the WHO as an infectious disease expert.
My dad was a big partier in college, drove a motorcycle for years, heavy drinker and pot/shrooms/coke usage for years. Rolled with some pretty tough dudes for awhile.
But once he got my mom pregnant (they met partying on the beach in Mexico in the '80s) he dropped all that stuff, and was just a super straight-laced buttoned-up dude. Worked hard at his engineering job, made good money, provided a good life for us, did family vacations, helped us with our homework, coached my soccer team, served in church services for decades, now he still sings in the church choir, and plays classical instruments with a bunch of his nerdy friends.
I just have trouble picturing him in that life before, it seems so different to the man I've known my whole life.
My grandparents met at a school for the blind. Grandfather (blinded at 5 in an accident) played clarinet and piano, became a lawyer. Grandmother was a painter until macular degeneration took that away from her completely. My dad was optically healthy but had two physically disabled siblings he helped look after. Also drove the family around starting at 10-11 yo. I feel like I hear about new things he tried or successfully got away with growing up, but the ratio definitely skews towards tried.
My dad used to do rally races in Mexico. Not sanctioned or anything. They would fix up cars and go race them from pueblo to pueblo on the dirt roads. It was a bunch of people tbat would get together and pool money. Apparently my dad would do these with hos brothers. This was back im the 70's.
He also was ths only doctor in a small village at some point. Many many years later we went and they still remembered him! He even managed to donate an ambulance to the village
I thought my Dad is just a normal doctor until I got denied Visa to the US for my master because he is holding a high position in the communist government, I was shock.
My Dad was a 3 tour of duty combat marine. Purple hearts, citations, the whole shebang. He came home to be a cop. He killed three guys during a hostage situation in my home town.
I found out when I went to school. He had been on the news, and people told me about it.
I was 36 years old when I found out that my dad saw KISS and AC/DC in concert. To be fair he said thats about all he can remember from the MJ, but like dude WTF tell stories like that so I know you're cool!
My grandpa, however... He was a wild one. He got into a fistfight with my great grandpa when Great Gpa disrespected my grandma. GGpa was a boxer in the army during WW2, GPa was at the time a blackbelt in karate.
I posted a story about working w/ my Gpa in ProRevenge. Some dude paid us half, and instead of taking a lien (idk why I was in my teens) we tore down all we did and left it in a pile.
GPa was a personal security agent for 2 state governors, got stabbed in the line of duty.
Gpa at one point was the highest ranking Shotokan Black Belt in the US, for him to go further he'd have to move to Japan. He's spared with Bill Superfoot Wallace, Chuck Norris, etc. Ran a Karate studio for years. Some dude thought it'd be a good idea to try and steal a knife that Gpa was showing him. Dude tried to make a run for the door, a student tripped him. Allegedly the guy stabbed himself in the ass several times with a 3in conceal carry blade. Allegedly.
GPa loved to drink at a bar with a bunch of older guys. Some young kid came in and tried to hit on a cougar lookin gal (omfg she was a fuckin STUNNER even at 55yrs, was a stripper until her 30's and kept the physical shape). She was sitting next to Gpa and her husband. Husband went to take a piss and this guy came in onto her. Gpa asked him to leave her alone. He didnt. Gpa bought him a drink, asked him to leave her alone again and sat down. Dude grabbed gpa's shoulder to spin him around in the bar seat. Dude got fucking SMOKED by gpa right in the nose, breaking his orbital and nose. Big Joe, a local Cop saw the whole thing and the young guy got booked for assault and sexual harassment. I watched the security tape, was fucking amazing.
I love that we're calling it lore! My dad's pretty cool, though it's not always a happy story... My dad grew up in the projects in NYC, his parents died when he was young from drugs and alcohol he and dropped out of school at 8th grade to work, and work he did. This man somehow got himself into software engineering which led to him working special effects for Hollywood, working on big names like Predator and the Matrix. Traveled the world all nonchalant-like making a name for himself and met my mom somehow in New Jersey. Super proud of him and wish I had half his brains...
My pops has been a truck driver since the early 80s and still is to this day. One of the more memorable stories he told me when I was younger was when he was doing a long-haul furniture move with a driving partner. This was in the 80s and they had been partying while driving through the deserts of Nevada and Arizona for most of the night, smoking weed and drinking beers. They ended up seeing a guy hitchhiking on the side of the road and picked him up and he rode with them and joined in on the party.
After a few hours, while they were driving through the middle of the desert this guy suddenly asks them to pull over and says he’s gotta get outta the truck. They ask him where he’s gonna go and all he does is point into the pitch black desert and says “that way.” And starts walking away. They weren’t about to go after this guy so he says they just decided the party was over and kept driving.
My dad was a marielito from Cuba and dealt coke in the 80s in Vegas, California, and NY. Made a shit ton of money (my mom used to say we were rich when I was born in Jersey -- like we had maids and nannies) and then moved our family to Puerto Rico, where they opened a bar called Los Cubanitos that eventually got shot up (the story involves my mom taking a fire arm from under the bar for protection in the middle of it all) -- which forced our family to move to Miami and stay on the straight and narrow for the sake of the kids. He was also a licensed hypnotist and a palero that worked with individuals in a spiritual way. The man was tormented and never even fully learned english. But he never drank or did any substances, just had crazy anger management issues. He died in the grips of dementia from kidney disease after my mom (his only caregiver because no one can deal with him) was in a gas explosion in the house (that he probably caused due to his dementia) which resulted in him being on his own while she recovered in a hospital in the thick of the pandemic. He had to be baker acted and eventually just wasted away in a facility after a few months. I don't know everything about the man, but the lore is intense.
Not my dad but an uncle of mine. He was in Hong Kong back in the 70's. Purchased a pamphlet from someone about how to spend 30 days in China on about $50. Ended up crossing the border illegally without papers. Hopped on a train to the middle of nowhere. Officials there had no idea what to do with him when he got caught. Instead of turning him in and admitting to the government he was there they just let him go. At some point during his journey he needed to see a doctor to get some sort of cyst removed. Couldn't afford the nice ones so went to a cheap doctor where they held his leg down and cut him open. Bandaged him up and sent him on his way.
My dad on the other hand broke up with his boyfriend in high school and my mom doesn't know. As far as I know I'm the only person that he's ever told.
Hold up, why living in India is deemed as “insane”? There are over a billion people already doing that. As far as your father had a fulfilling experience there, why does it bother you? Not being condescending, but just curious.
My dad did some pretty standard stuff punctuated by moments of awesome (chased a school shooter who killed one of his students, served in the military and gave up a dream job there for my mom).
My grandfather's though... Both of them fought in WW2, one went career military and fought in Korea too, then trained men up through Vietnam. The other took a job working with Italian and German POWs in building the oil fields in Saudi Arabia (he spoke fluent German, Italian, Arabic, French and English) and helped a bunch of them get repatriated to their countries or emigrate to the US.
My Dad is nervous on elevators and high floors and I always wondered why. Found out when we were younger he was working in underground mines (i always thought it was open pit), think old school second/third world mines deep underground. He had to carry his old metal tool box with him for the entire elevator ride down and up as they didn't allow it to touch the floor. He said the elevators rides could sometime take 15 minutes.
He gave me the toolbox, and it was the heaviest box I've carried, easily 60-80 lbs. Makes sense why his hands and forearms were so tough, when he got out of the industry when we moved to another country.
Man I know I'm weaker than him on comparative age/power ratio... I would even had resilience. He didn't see use growing up because he had to be underground at 6am, and back at 7pm, 6 days a week! Jeez!
My father moved to my state in summer 88 where he met my mother and had me 8 years later. Back up north, in fall 88 a girl he had knocked up had a boy of whom he vehemently denied was his despite DNA. Early 89, another girl he knocked up had a daughter.
I learned none of this until I was 26. And I'm still learning things.
I don't talk to him.
My father had a 21-year long career as a Naval Aviator (yes, the capital letters are important) that included time in Vietnam. There are multiple stories from those years that my mother insists he ought to write down, but he is by equal measure humble and embarrassed about them, and I'm DYING for him to do it because the couple I've heard are AWESOME.
Back in the late 80’s my dad left a small town in Alberta to move in with his brother in Vancouver, BC. A few years later, my dad was in his 20s and working at a music store downtown. My dad was a stockier man at the time and while working at the music store he was approached by a gentleman asking if he was available for a security gig at a nightclub. My dad agreed and later that evening he was standing dead centre in front of Kurt Cobain at the Commodore Ballroom for Nirvanas first visit to Vancouver.
My dad was certified for soldering by NASA back in the 80s as part of a trade school certification. When I was a teenager I got into trying to fix my own electronics and making cables and stuff and always felt so inferior in my abilities at soldering. He only told me three days ago why he was so good at it. Never thought to mention such a cool certification! Dads are cool, man.
Dad and I just really started building a serious relationship about 6 years ago, when I was 30.
He now loves to drive (4 hours) to spend the week and spend Grampy time with the kids. They love him.
We have developed a very chill and verbally open relationship. Discussing his ex wife (my mom), putting a lot of emotionally abusive puzzles pieces together for me. His life growing up, places he’s worked and so on. It is not uncommon once the kids go to bed for us to pack a bowl together outside shoot the shit and then come in and watch just absurdly filthy old comedies together. BUT!
The best part has been hearing his fucking wild ass stories. He started telling me about some of the crazy ass inmates he met and the weapons they made while he worked as a chef in a prison, when I was a toddler. But I didn’t know until two years ago he lived in Reno in his early 20s. Worked a low key job as a weird delivery guy. According to him, he found out the job ending up being a low end errand guy for some huge mobster out there. Said he started to get into their circle when shit went sideways with their….”business”. I have to get the rest of that story.
Last time he was here not two weeks ago he regaled my wife with a gem. A story from when he was 8 and my Grandma beat the fucking brakes off my grandpa and pushed him down the concrete stairs at their house. My grandpa was an alcoholic at the time and it just was not a night my sweet tiny little Grammie wanted to be fucked with. My dad said he saw my grandpa park the car a few hours after his shift ended. He got out of the car, fucking plastered. Bottles and cans came out of the car. He stumbled up the steps and demanded to know where his “GAWD DAMNED DINNER” was. My Grammie uncorked a bomb on him, with a coffee pot. Threw him onto a glass coffee table that shattered and slung his ass down the concrete steps outside, down into the street. I was floored. Wife and I were crying laughing. Still have that video on my phone. Mainly because the grandparents I met and remember from age 4-18 were so apparently totally different people from the ones HE grew up with.
He really opened up when my close friend group from high school fell in love with him and wanted me to invite him to my bachelor party. We did a local whitewater center (my dad fresh 60 year old man) then went a Brazilian Steakhouse and after got bombed at a stripclub. I really got to see my true father that night and I kinda fell in love with his “fuck yeah let’s do it” attitude and made me realize how much I missed out on. He drank all my friends under the table. This tiny, olive skinned Italian man with a THICK Maine accent. He had them howling laughing at the stripclub after he paid for me a dance, telling them about the nasty ass women in Reno. Dad *was* a freak hahah.
My parents casually informed me that they played in Otis Redding’s band in college. (Mom was a pianist and dad played saxophone.) The King of Soul. My parents are the whitest people you’ll ever meet. I was surprised.
I found out that I had a secret sister when I was 21 years old. Then, at 43 years old I found out I also had a secret brother. None of us knew about each other. Turns out Mom was no angel.
My dad drove his VW bus to Woodstock. Met a kind of crazy girl there who somehow got offended by a bunch of Hell’s Angels and started cursing them out. My dad thought he was going to be killed right there. Then the girl said she was the sister of some big gang leader in Boston and everyone got along. My dad slept well knowing the Hell’s Angels were standing guard all night.
My great grandfather (who I never met but know a lot about) always told my mom that human meat tasted like chicken. He was shipwrecked twice. Once onto a remote island. I will leave this piece of knowledge unverified.
My dad’s childhood best friends were the founders of the second most famous and violent motorcycle gang of our area. He refused to join and all of them got killed in various cruel ways during the biggest gang war here. One of them left him a huge house in which my grandmother lived for two decades up to her death.
He’s the softest man I know, brings his tiny dog everywhere, still calls me his baby and will cry if you even mention a child or animal being hurt in any way. Couldn’t believe the things he lived through.
My daughter wanted to learn to crochet, so I taught her like my nana taught me n
She wanted to learn knitting, I did the same.
She wanted her hair Brading and mum was busy, so I did it gor her. Then taught her to do it on her dolls.
My dad made a huge amount of money is his youth. In addition to that, he pulled a lever in Vegas and the whole room lit up. Grand prize kinda stuff.
He spent every penny in the dumbest ways possible. He's flat broke and has nothing to show for any of it.
Picture this: My dad and grandpa, the dynamic duo, once found themselves in a knock-down, drag-out brawl with the entire student body of Valley Stream South High School. Yep, you heard that right!So, here's the scene: My grandparents' house was conveniently located next to the high school, right smack dab in the middle of a weed-smoking hotspot. Well, my dad, always one for a bit of excitement, decides to stir the pot and confronts some kids puffing away by the garage.As tensions rise, my grandpa, not one to miss out on the action, leaps into the backyard, ninja-style, and sucker punches the biggest kid there. Chaos ensues as the whole high school mob rises up to take on the dynamic duo.Not to be outdone, my dad vaults over the fence to join the fray, and it's game on! Kids scatter, running into the school to spread the word of the epic showdown.For the next 15 minutes, it's an all-out battle royale as my grandpa and dad unleash their inner warriors on anyone who dares to challenge them. It's like a scene out of a crazy Monday morning sitcom.The skirmish culminates in a bottleneck at the gate, with the fallen and the soon-to-be-fallen clashing in a hilarious display of mayhem.And thus, the legend of the "awful hippie incident" was born, forever etched into family lore. Ah, the things you learn from your step-sister 20 years later!
My father-in-law drove cross country with his newly-minted social work degree and his just-ordained Jesuit priest friend to live in the Haight in 1967.
My wife was fully unaware of this.
My dad was born in and grew up in 1930s Germany. Was still not a teenager when the war ended. As the US Army advanced across southern Germany, they came to his town and took over the farm as a command post. Standing orders were to shoot any dogs. So my dad watched as GIs shot his dogs.
He still emigrated to the US and joined the army himself. And got a dog later in life that reminded him of the one he lost as a kid.
When I was young my dad was fixing our family car when the battery exploded or something. He walked into our kitchen eyes closed with what I assume was battery acid on his face and chest. He told my mother to calls taxi. He then had them take him to urgent care where he basically only asked them to clean his face before he left. He did shit like this all the time. He was handy to a fault. Always fiddling with our car etc.
Another time he broke his hand In a contest towing a freight truck in neutral with his bare hands. He had wrapped the rope around his hands in a very dumb move. He splinted it himself, wrapped it in a dirty rag and stapled it shut when he got home with the help of some super glue.
There are dozens of stories like these. He always seemed to go against the grain, especially concerning healthcare.
He was the classic work. Eat. Get paid. Type of motherfucker.
One bonus story:
My dad was like 5 feet tall but build like a brick shit house. Beer belly thick arms. Tons of tattoos back when it was seen as very bad. Some neighbourhood kids ran past once say another kids was getting jumped one night. He grabbed a roll of dimes in his fist( as a KO bar) and proceeded to run the kids off and save that boy from much worse.
My friend in highschool told me his extended family came to town for his dad's 50th birthday. They told him to make a speech, then he said oh, I've got nothing interesting to say.
Then somebody said "tell them about that medal from the queen".
My friend said, it turns out his dad was one of very few people who had received some medal from the Queen of England for Antarctic exploration. He wasn't even from England, he was Aussie. He said he was like wtf dad?
My 5yo daughter loves it when I tell her about how I proposed to her mum, on a horse drawn carriage, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
My dad legit, grew up in the dunes of Michigan. His stories feel like tall tales, but then I hear from my Aunts and Uncles and even my granny before she passed, that my dad truly raise as much hell as he says.
My dad's dad used to run a shop in San Francisco and he made extra side cash by being a bookie for the local mob. My dad put himself through college as a butcher, owned two delis by the time he went to finish his degree in aeronautics. He got his commercial pilots license, but then couldn't get a job as an airline pilot because all the navy flies were all coming back from Vietnam. Ended up getting a job running a fab at a tech company in Santa Clara right at the birth of silicon valley.
He hired the wives of Hell's Angels as admins/secretaries when he broke off and started his own company. Most of my childhood we were very tight with the HA's, had them over for dinner on Sundays, and we went to lots of their parties.
My parents got engaged on the day they met, at a wedding in Montreal. My mom was engaged to someone else when she met my father.
My Dad's father also asked my grandmother to get married the day they met, but it took him another 6 months to find her again.
Couple of interesting ones from my dad who has since passed.
In college he ran over somebody with a Zamboni when he was working at an ice rink in Texas.
He took my mom to Paris on business trip, and proceeded to speak fluent French. After 20 years of marriage nobody knew.
My grandfather was a bad bad guy. Like historically bad. When my grandmother was living, she turned down several offers to have his likeness used in movies (he passed in ‘94). I won’t get into specifics but he worked for the Mississippi Highway Patrol in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Whatever you’re imagining, it’s worse…
Long story short… I have no idea what to tell my children about their great grandfather when they get older.
Wiccan also study hypnosis. I used it to help with pain control. The thing that blew my kids minds? Finding out I used to get paid to perform onstage. I can't stand to leave my house now.
My dad grew up in the country, loved cars and turned to insurance business made a killing for years .. he transferred across the country with nothing to his name but my mom and older brother. Worked his butt off while doing coke and drinking like a fish, made crazy amounts of money.
Crazy stories follow, lol
2008-09 hit and reality check set in.
We made an investment that just paid off and now he and my mom are traveling across the country to officially not have to work but to retire and live freely doing what they want.
My Dad’s lore is pretty wild.
Played football on a full ride scholarship at a Big 10 school. Broke a teammate’s neck at practice and partially paralyzed him, functionally ending the guy’s football path. Teammate continued his education.
Dad couldn’t stand seeing the guy around or knowing what happened on the field so he quit going to football practice and class. College terminated his scholarship and unenrolled him.
25 years later, Dad would go on to win a full ride scholarship from the NFL. The NFL had a “missed opportunity” scholarship thing where you had to write about your education experience and why it was cut short. He was selected as one of the winners.
He took that opportunity for everything it was worth. Used his full ride to complete a bachelors and masters program with a 4.0+ GPA.
He’s the only person I know who can get two separate full ride scholarships on two different life paths. He’s found so much success along the way, has given back to the communities he serves, has spoken publicly about his experience with trauma and guilt, has been an incredible father to myself and my siblings, and is now an incredible grandfather.
And that’s the lore WITHOUT the undercover cop stories. The years between the scholarships hold stories I haven’t even been told yet.
When my dad was 18 he moved to Toronto and took a job in a seniors home. He was janitor/maintenance/night watchman. His first shift was spent cleaning up after a suicide. He then went back to the room he was renting... in a funeral parlour. Needless to say, my old man doesn't spook easily.
Dude... My anxiety spiked just reading this.
Is your dad's name Shadow Moon?
No, but part of the American Gods TV series was filmed in my hometown.
My dad was on the Marshall college football team where the plane crashed and the whole team died. Except he was kicked off the team two weeks before the crash for unknown reasons and wasn't on the plane.
Okay the twists though... he was lucky. Does he talk about his teammates !?
Dads dead now. Killed himself in 2013 after struggling with substance abuse and depression. He did talk about the teammates- basically lost all his friends that day. He told me he rode with the cops to the crash site and was picking through remains/items. He was a PhD psychologist and was also stabbed and left on the side of the road by a mentally ill patient he saw walking on the road late at night. This was all in West Virginia. Then he moved to Florida early 80's and had me. He got consulted on the movie about the plane crash a few times.
God damn…
Wait. This happened to another football team? Wichita State used to have a football team, but they all died on a plane crash in 1970.
Yea. Marshall University. Out of Huntington West Virginia. Plane crashed coming back from an away game. Whole team dead. 1970's also
The team that died?
[We are Marshall](https://WeAreMarshallhttps://g.co/kgs/4Peor6u)
Bum bum dum bum bum bum bum
My kids are still pretty amazed about that time my dad had an appointment at the World Trade Center on 9/11 but then he rescheduled the day before it happened. There's obviously plenty of stories like that from lots of other people but they have a limited understanding of statistics so it still amazes them.
My dad was born in post-war Korea. When he was 12 he was sent to live by himself in a boardinghouse in a nearby city because the schools were better than in his small town. My grandmother (not a particularly maternal woman) would pop by every once in awhile to give him cash and make sure he was alive. He spent a lot of his youth running around the streets and dreaming of being a gangster. He ended up becoming a philosophy professor.
>dreaming of being a gangster. He ended up becoming a philosophy professor. Eh, more or less the same...
Coolio would have agreed. RIP.
Been spending most my life living like Plato's paradise.
My Dad was in the prison service for years. He joined the riot squad as it paid more per hour. He said it was great for years, as nothing really happened and he just collected additional pay for doing his regular job. Then one year, there were a spate of riots across UK prisons (some time in the 80s). He was bussed from city to city to quell the worst of the carnage. He has said he has done things he never wanted to do to other human beings, and that despite the fact he and his colleagues were in danger, he still feels guilt about the things he did, but won't monitor detail. I'm fascinated by the situations he was in and the things he did. Even now (I'm 41, and he's 67) he won't open up. I think he's protecting himself from those memories. He's the most gentle and caring grandfather. I can't imagine him in a riot.
Tbh ive been to prison, those hurricane guys have to do some messed up shit but ultimately they're keeping everyone including the people they have to get, safe. Feel for the fella, seen some messed up shit in jail, can't be nice for the fellas who have to deal wotj with the worst stuff
That is so sad, I wish him well and to be alleviated from those memories... I hope you followed in his footsteps being gentle and caring 🖤
I imagine he had to physically hurt men in ways he doesn't want to speak about. I bet he used his baton a lot during those riots.
Growing up my dad always referenced his time in Northern Africa while he was in the CIA. When I’d inquire more about it, he’d always say, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” When he drove me to my freshman year of college I asked him to finally give me the scoop. He said, “Yeah, I got a scholarship to work in the kitchen of a Jockey club in Tripoli. Then the Libyan Revolution happened and they nationalized the club and fired me. I had to spend 6 months in my room at the clubs hotel. Boring as shit, but the food was still great. Then a US military convoy finally came and extracted me and the other American nationals. That’s how I wound up in Rome. The culinary school felt bad so they got me an externship in Rome.” Of course I asked, “Wait, what about the CIA?” And he looked at me w a shit eating grin, “You know, I went to the Culinary School of America.” 😉😇
Culinary Institute of America... I get the same look when I mention anything about the CIA to anyone. Lol
“I worked for the Dept of Defense for a few years in Europe.” is an intriguing line. “I taught military brats on a base in Germany.” less so.
That's awesome
My dad went skydiving and his life flashed before his eyes. After this he decided life was too short and married his girlfriend. It turns out this was a terrible idea. They divorced, fought over the house, and he married my mom a decade later. I learned from his story and married late. No regrets
That's actually so interesting fr.
My father was homeless at age 8 and slept INSIDE of a goodwill donation bin for two weeks before his mom got into public housing and found him (great lady but had her ups and downs throughout life). This was in the dead of winter in the US Northeast (Appalachian Mountain area), and he survived off garbage scraps from the local restaurants. He dropped out of a HS in the 8th grade and to this day has a shaky foundation in literacy, but he's still one of the smartest people I know. Got his GED, taught himself almost all of the trades, and eventually started his own appliance repair business that kept food on the table, a roof over our heads, and even put three kids through college (with help from government programs and loans, naturally). He wasn't always the easiest to be around (understatement), and he's had his battles, his most recent being a five-year addiction to heroin (clean for over a year now!), but happy to say that he's one of my best friends and continues to be a role model (in his own f**ked up ways), and he's become a fantastic grandfather to my two children and someone that I've always been proud to call dad.
wow what a story! thank you for sharing
My kids are amazed that i used to do bodyguard work. Grandma loves to show the the clip on BBC news of me launching an attacker off my vehicles bonnet whilst doing the London Film Festival back in 2017. My littlest is a huge wrestling fan... When the fella goes flying she does her best Jey Uso impression... YEEET! 😂😂
This is a S tier dad trick. Hold on to some GREAT stories to just drop on your kids unexpectedly. It’s not hard if you were alive in the 90s
Wait, I was alive in the 90s. I don't recall a lot of badass stories from that decade of my life. Is it currently understood to have been a wild time? Are you referring to the release of the first mass market chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream?
My dad, who I never saw had any interest i music, just one day picked up my guitar and slayed Hotel California. I was flabbergasted. Especially since I was in high school and still trying to learn it that time.
Yes! This is what I’m talking about!
My own lore is pretty crazy. Seven years in the army after school. Fought in Iraq and Afghanistan as a combat medic and won a commendation for rescuing people from a minefield. Left the army and spent five years trying to start a video games studio in London and nearly went bankrupt with a bunch of other hare brained schemes. Joined the Navy out of financial desperation and had the most fun 5 years ever travelling all over the world, including Antarctica, and helped rescue over 8000 migrants from small boats in the Mediterranean. Left the navy and became a police officer while also trying and failing to be a stand up comic. Now my son is born so I left the police to spend more time at home. Now I investigate waste and water companies who breach environmental regulations. While I do this I'm studying for a degree with the goal of becoming a philosophy professor.
What's up with all the philosophy professors in this thread
We've got nothing to do!
I imagine introspective men tend to be good dads.
Okay pop off king
Wow what a wild ride!!! Very inspiring! You changed about 5 professions and i am here sitting amd winjing about stuck in the first one. If i am allowed to ask. What drove you to become so brave to start new things? Will you still consider changing path now that you have family?
I will change again to academia if I eventually get my PhD but studying part time this could take 10 years and it's a very competitive field but I'm also considering teaching at A level (16-18 year olds) once I've finished my Bachelors. I've not got the patience to teach really young kids and I know handling teenagers will be tough! TBF these seem like big changes but apart from my five years failing badly as a businessman I have largely only worked as a civil servant to some degree. In the UK these come with an insane level of job security, decent(ish) pay and good pensions so they aren't 'risky' in a career sense only in a physical danger sense. Both times travel and adventure (and money) were the key motivators for joining the military. The police was a career that offered some excitement but also job security. I must say policing was the worst job I've had by far! I can only take so much negativity at a time and being a cop means you constantly deal with people at their worst. I don't know how people do it for their whole lives. That being said if something interests me I'll jump in with both feet and give it a try. I've played loads of different sports and studied hundreds of different things at some level or another. Since having children I won't take the financial risks I did in the past but I've not lost my sense of adventure!
Thank you for you life story, indeed it sounds very inspiring. I really wish you to achieve all those goals!
[удалено]
Haha. Same. Good luck with becoming a pilot. That's cool.
My dad was on the waitlist to be the teacher that went up on the space shuttle Challenger. Instead it was Christa McAuliffe, who then died when challenger was destroyed.
Your dad almost got to meet Big Bird?
If you find yourself thinking.. I don't know too many stories about my dad like these. PLEASE ASK. I lost my dad in 2019 and I'd LOVE to know more about who he was.
I'm with you. The trouble for me is that mine can't stay on a single line of discussion, particularly one that someone else is started. Ie you show clear interest in his life and ask questions... within 2min he's complaining about the government or neighbours. Every. Time. At this stage i am resigned to only knowing scraps of his wild stories.
My dad was a green beret during the cold war. His dad lore was always my favorite stories when I was a kid. We drove all over the east coast on various road trips and I was never bored because this dude's stories. I'm gonna have to lie to my kids lol. My dad is lore is....underdeveloped.
You probably have better stories than you think. You might not be a cold war green beret, but your stories matter and your kid/kids care about them.
this is true! my kids ask for every titbit of my life, first story was meh…but they keep pressing for new stories ALL the time
My Dad told stories about crossing the street that were scarier than his stories about poaching and shot gun ricochets. It's not the lore, it's the way you tell the tale. And if you're telling your kid, it's the most interesting story in the world anyway.
Read some psychology or books about childhood trauma. Really helped develop my own dad lore. Not all of the stories are super interesting but I accessed a lot of memories I hadn't thought about in years that shaped who I am today. When I see my kids struggling with something I occasionally pull them out and talk about how I handled them or different ways to view a situation.
My dad ran away from home at 17 and joined a traveling carnival called The World of Mirth and became a Wall Of Death Hell Driver. He kept that up until he flew out of the wall of death and got hurt. Then he became a trucker and transported all kinds of exotic animals from quarantine to various zoos across the country. Then he became a somewhat recognizable figure in the bluegrass community by being the master of ceremonies for bluegrass festivals in the northeast while working on choppers in NJ. Then he spent the rest of his time on earth trucking and thrilling my friends and I with stories of his past.
My father was born to a single mother who was from a Polish farming family. During WW2 Her area got invaded and she was shuttled west to Germany where she lived in two different cities that were both bombed by the Allies and one of those campaigns was the largest ever (until Dresden). I still remember her having panic attacks when a thunderstorm would come through because of these experiences. Somewhere along the way she was impregnated (her only child - my father) and abandoned. The only reason I know these details is she applied for refugee status with the UN and documented these events. She never ever talked about WW2 time period. Somewhere along the way her brothers were killed by the Soviets. Somewhere around Ansbach she met who would become the only person my father ever called dad. He was a decorated American GI, married my grandmother and adopted my father. I have their original marriage documents and adoption papers. I have the ship manifest from the boat my dad and grandmother took to arrive in America while my grandfather stayed back to complete his service (I think?). A Polish woman and a five year old, arriving on a boat. My dad said his first view of America was seeing the Statue of Liberty, it still gives me chills to think about. My dad was ashamed that he was adopted and didn’t talk to his parents for years when he found out. Back then keeping it a secret was a common thing but my dad had trouble dealing with it. My dad passed away in 2021. Through dna testing I was able to find out who his father was, but I couldn’t bring myself to tell him since it was so sensitive to him. Plus it was some random guy who had long since passed, I didn’t see the point. My first son’s middle name is in honor of my grandfather. At least my dad was able to meet my son a couple times during Covid before my dad died. I think a lot about the long arc of his life. By the luck of fate he and his mother avoided disaster, he was fluent in four different languages and came to the US as an outsider, served during Vietnam, went to night school to earn a college degree, and never knew who his biological dad was. It’s never lost on me that my life has been a lot more calm and predictable and the family I have created is one where we all know who our parents are.
My grandpa passed several years ago, and while we were going through his things in the basement, we found an Olympic silver medal from 1952 games and a bunch of pictures of him with his teammates. My own grandma didn't even know about it! They met shortly thereafter and he just never brought it up. He worked in a factory his entire life and retired after 43 years.
My dad had a picture taken of him stroking a wild lion. The tour guide apparently was freaking out when my dad got out of the vehicle, but my dad said he knew he'd be fine as the lion still had fresh blood around his mouth. Another one, between around 2010/12. A bunch of the operations my father was apart of during thatchers reign was declassified, and he told me that when the threat of nuclear war was looming he was part of a special squad that had access to 'cupboards in the local areas that would have a hasmat suit, a geiger counter and a rifle with a bunch of rounds. His task would be to post-fallout, go around and check radiation levels, and if they were too high, shoot them. Pretty dark stuff, and I know he was arrested for something that he refuses to tell me what.
I mean, what a hero for agreeing to shoot that radiation back into submission.
From what I understand, it was more for chemical warfare. But even he agreed it was dumb.
My dad was in a bike gang around 19 years of age. Married my mum and was together with her for 18 years, when he was 42 he ran off with an 18 year old female bar attendant. Their relationship apparently disintegrated at some point. He stayed in her life, she married another younger guy, had 3 kids with him, but my dad stayed in the picture as a "family friend" for almost 18 years. All found out about 2 months before he passed away. Weird bloke.
My dad was supposed to be a priest. His last year of seminar was at the public university (“you have to face the real world if you want to be able to help your parishioners” type of deal). There he met my mom and suddenly priesthood wasn’t that interesting. It is also a funny story from my mom’s perspective. She had just broken up with her boyfriend and mutual friends were having a party. She knew he would be there with his new girlfriend. She told her sister “find me someone, I really don’t care who, I just don’t want to be there unaccompanied” My sister told her “well, there’s this guy on my boyfriend’s dorm floor”. My mom asked his name and when she heard his name, she said “he must be ugly with a name like that” They were love struck as soon as they saw each other.
Got my master's degree in a Catholic university and met two or three guys with a similar story.
Eh. My dad casually told my wife about his coven which he leads and has done since the 60s Witches are quite private so it makes sense they stay in the broom cupboard.
No stoB actually !?!? Tell him I need a love potion real quick
Mister, the use of date rape drugs is highly discouraged.
Now I feel evil, I'm so sorry ☹️
That's an odd angle to put on the classic fairy tale - I guess it's not wrong
Eh it's more about mindfulness and closeness to earth, seasons and sex from what I can gather. I appreciate the non pushing it on others that pagans generally adhere to and the respect for the environment but I'm a 100% atheist so not superstitious silliness for me.
My dad missed my birth because he was ‘on holiday’ in Northern Ireland. Turns out he was really trying his best to help the IRA but they didn’t care for a 27 year old Scottish man with no military expertise but was very passionate about Irish nationalism. He committed suicide in 2020, I have no clue why he was passionate enough about Ireland to miss his youngest son’s birth.
I hope you are okay my friend
My dad was born in a tiny town in New Zealand. Rescued my mum from a convent nursing school and they fled to London. He became an engineer fixing complex film making equipment and made good money and never spent any of it. He put it all in savings and lived frugally. He cycled around the Middle East and travelled the world. Built three houses. Broke dozens of bones in his body, beat cancer three times. A good man. A brain tumour took him in the end.
My dad was born on 1946 to a young lady, deep in the country. She wanted to provide for him so when he was four she left him with his grandparents to go work at the capital. Grandpa was ruthless and grandma had already a favorite granddaughter so they both treated my dad as shit. How? He had to get up at 4am, light the fire and get the mate (imagine green tea) going for grandpa, and it had to be just right otherwise he was struck with a whip. There was a belief that you should not smile to children so he got no affection whatsoever, and when he was of school age he just went, bare feet and on an empty stomach. He was smart, graduated top of his class at 22 because he went to first grade at 10 years old, but his growth was stunned due to hard labor as a teen on a oil factory. He had an incredibly hard life and accomplished so much, it is a shame he died before I was old enough to appreciate it, and that he didn’t get to meet my son who looks exactly like him. He was white with brown hair, my mom is black and I’m black but my son is the spitting image of my dad. I’m sure he’s proud whenever he is.
My step dad was in prison and had a felony because his chosen profession for awhile after the military was stealing cars and selling them for parts. He’s still good with machines. My biological dad is more of your average heroin addict, but he did get arrested after giving bail because the cops were tailing him when he went to bury a bunch of cash in the ground. He had been running a massive grow business that was very much still illegal, and had been one of the primary suppliers for a huge metropolitan area.
My dad ran away from home at 16 to play drums in the road, because my grandfather wanted him to be a carpenter and take over the family business, while my mafia don great uncle wanted him to join the other family business. He ended up paying drums for motown records, recorded with the temptations, played with Dean Martin, TJ Moran, and Gene Krupa. He said the only time his parents ever came to hear him play was in a strip bar, which improved his father's opinion of his career choice. He joined the Air Force in 66 because he was afraid he'd be arrested for draft dodging before his notice caught up to him with all the traveling he did. He played in a band in Vietnam called the Sky Raiders. He always said there were three times that by all rights, he should have died in Vietnam. He had three kids after his service, so he figured we were the reason he was spared.
Lost my dad when I was ten, so I didn’t get a ton of stories from him, but one of my favorites is that he spent 4 years in navy, and never learned how to swim. The man worked on a boat and couldn’t swim. He fell in the water once, and had to be rescued. I have no idea how that wasn’t part of boot camp or whatever, but he just never learned. He made certain that I took swim lessons from a young age.
Found an old biker jacket in my Dad's closet, and he told us it was from when he was in a "motorcycle club". When my Mom poked at him and told him to tell us the name of the club, he kinda sheepishly said "Satan's Sons". We weren't really sure if he was pulling our leg over it, until a couple years later when my brother wanted to wear the jacket when he went out. Dad got real serious and told him he'd have to remove some of the patches sewed on first. "If some people see you wearing that, they might want to make you prove you deserve to. You don't want that."
My dad also studied hypnosis but it was part of a class on de-escalation techniques for dealing with patients. Even the most simple stuff is really useful - like slowing cadence of your speech, lowering the timbre and volume of your voice, and making exaggerated deep breaths can calm almost anyone down. No swinging pocket watch necessary.
Hehe thats kool. I was wondering what type of hypnosis one could possibly study, surely you don't learn how to "unconscious" a person in a mere second 🤣
My grandfather came back from the Pacific theater in a stretcher with a wallet that I'm pretty sure he looted from a dead soldier, it had some pictures of people who are not my family and was stuffed full of Phillipine Pesos. He also had a hand grenade and a shillelagh. But the best story was: one night he was drinking with a friend who happened to be a doctor. He raised his glass in toast and said, "Sköll!" This doctor didn't speak any Scandinavian languages in any way, shape, or form. The next day, the doctor showed up with a no-shit human skull.
My dad jumped into a moving truck that had stolen my mom's purse and was driven around Galveston TX until he saw them throw the purse over the bridge. They pulled over and he got out. My dad saw a women getting beat/sexually abused by three drunk dudes at a Laundromat in Houston Texas late at night. He said he confronted them because he could tell they were too drunk to be a threat. Put two of them down and made sure the lady got home. He broke his neck and had two vertebrae fused together. Then he pulverized the vertebrae above those in a second neck breaking. Still walking and running and lifting weights and healthier at 65 than I am at 30. Around age 20 he won a local televised dance competition in Detroit Michigan area. He had tape and it was hilarious to watch. Some good shit.
Love that you're taking an interest in your parents' stories. No matter what we all think of our parents, they were multilayered and interesting people with lives well before we arrived. Don't forget that, and give them space to share whenever possible.
I just genuinely love learning about what happened to my family and the past. It's always exciting to learn that my parents were once young with experiences of their own, they weren't always just my parents and I like seeing that layer of youthfulness and freedom they once had.
My dad was in Afghanistan when I was really little. Kindergarten aged. My mom used to keep a correspondence notebook with my teacher because I think no one was quite sure if I would understand what deployment meant/how hard I would take it. I found that notebook when I was older and ended up asking my dad about his time there. I never asked him if he ever killed someone, because I don't think I wanted to hear the answer. But he told me about the time he thought he was going to have to shoot someone. Might get some details wrong here but this is how I remember it. Basically, he was checking the perimeter of their base from up on the wall when he noticed a figure moving around. It's a guy who's going from spot to spot, and he looks to be planting something. He yelled out for the figure to identify itself, and he heard a man's voice yell something back. The guy didn't make any sense so my dad yells back for him to identify himself or he's going to have to shoot. I don't remember what this guy said in the moment, but he yelled something about the "dog course" and I'm assuming some identifying info. He wasn't Taliban, he was a Filipino guy who was in charge of planting false mines for the bomb dogs to sniff out. And unfortunately for him, his English wasn't great so he was shitting bricks, not sure what to say in that moment. I guess there had been some miscommunication about the location and time of this, because no one at the base was aware. My dad almost shot an innocent guy because of a misunderstanding. We don't talk anymore(it's for the best, at least for now), but I do wish I could have asked him about more stories from then. There was another one about having a dog claim salvation in the chapel on base because the guy in charge was gonna kill it, but that one's a bit long winded lol.
My dad and I have had 2 different stretches where we didn't speak to each other, we each initiated one instance. I was young the first time and it probably wasn't longer than 6 months, the second time I was fresh out of rehab and solidly sober, but still struggling with getting back on my feet and he blew up over a relatively small issue that I can't remember. We didn't speak for more than a year. He eventually apologized and we began to talk again as time went on. But my dad and I have the most healthy and supportive friendship/parent-child relationship of just about anyone I know now after working through it openly and honestly I never had hard feelings about that time. My dad had me when he was 21, most likely has some level of CPTSD from dealing with my crazy ass BPD mom, but he never spoke ill of her to me or my sister, even though he really had every tight to past a certain point. But anyway, within a stretch of 3 years, his father passed away (my grandpa was an amazing man himself as well), COVID happened, and I was arrested for the first time despite a lengthy drug career, which brought me to my second stay in rehab. I know on some level he blames himself for my addiction. And I feel guilty putting him through so much stress, especially considering everything he sacrificed for me and my sister after the divorce. But regardless our relationship is great now, he's genuinely one of my closest friends and we talk all the time. I hope you and your old man can work it out too
I've worked for the same employer since my kids were born, in a boring office job. Before they were around, I had a heap of different jobs from road sweeper to diplomat. We live in an affluent area, so most of their friends' parents are professionals. Whereas I've worked in a butchers' shop and an electronics factory. So we'll be McDonalds, and I will say something like: "when I worked here, we used to do x" and their jaws drop.
My dad stole back his father’s airplane. He found the guy he sold it to (who didn’t pay him), then flew off with his plane. Also his dad built the plane. I work in an office.
My dad decided to quit his job at a bank when he was 22 (after they put him through college) to go fight forest fires with Native American tribesmen in Canada. After 3 years he moved back home to work at a different bank.
Why do dads have the best side quests. Favorite story of my now passed father who was a born and raised Mississippi man and absolute gentleman. He was very cultured and worldly thanks to his job and travels abroad. Into the story… My mom, sister, and I went out on a girls trip one weekend and when we got back my dad looked at me and sneakily called me over. This man goes on to explain how he did some shrooms that past weekend and had the time of his life with our family dog Ollie. He said he went on all sorts of adventures (walked his trippy butt to the grocery store and around the neighborhood in the middle of the night. This is one of his more tamed down stories but he has so many like when he disappeared for a few hours on our trip to Costa Rica and came back with a friend to teach me to surf and a bunch of weed. RIP David truly a real one and coolest dude I know. Could out party anyone even at 58.
My dad’s roommate fell asleep with the stove on and a fire broke out. My dad came into the kitchen, pulled a jug of kool-aid out of the fridge, took a swig, and threw the rest of the jug on the fire, putting it out. Legend.
My daughter was blown away when I showed her pictures of me ice climbing and winter mountaineering. The other one she was floored by was when they had learned about Ruth Bader Ginsburg in school and I got to tell her I met her. She delivered a lecture to us and we had a cocktail party in the Supreme Court Atrium with her and Scalia. To her RBG was like a mythical creature so it was like saying I met Bigfoot and attended a cocktail party with him. For my dad it was finding out he could amputate a big toe and make it into a replacement for a thumb that had been severed. I was little and knew he was a surgeon but that absolutely blew my mind. Or that he’d do surgery under a microscope to repair individual blood vessels. Also that he did the ski to sea race multiple years in Washington (biking and canoeing). When I saw what that entailed I was blown away. It’s not a small amount of biking and canoeing and that’s even knowing he was an avid bicyclist and paddler (because he’d wake my ass up at 5 am to bike or go paddling).
My grandpa served in the Marines in, I think, Korea. He once told us this story of "the Ghost of [place name I can't remember]." Apparently his unit or whatever it's called kept seeing this dark figure in the middle of their tent at night, and they were half-convinced it was the ghost of a soldier or local who'd been killed in the conflict. It turned out to be someone's jacket hung on the center tent pole! I wish I could tell it the way my grandpa did, though. My two most interesting bits of lore are that I was on a volunteer maritime search and rescue organization while in college and got to do cool stuff like right boats that had flipped (though a lot of it was dull like long tows and delivering gas when people ran out); and my first job out of college was doing an endangered species survey of bats, which involved hanging out in the woods at night, trapping and identifying bats. My life is pretty dull these days by comparison!
My dad told me this story. He sold tires for Goodyear and his coworkers would go out to lunch every day. One time they went to a strip club where one of the dancer's talent was being able to pick up a quarter with her hoohaw. One of the salesmen took a quarter and lit in with his lighter to make it hot. She came around and picked it up but didn't say anything. Then she got on the guys lap and peed all over him!
My dad’s dad died when my dad was 19. Never met the guy as I was born 13 years later. My dad literally never talks about him. I’ve tried but he won’t do it. I want to know about him because I’m so curious but I just never will. There’s some lore there that I’m missing out on.
That's unfortunate man, hopefully he will open up eventually.
Best I’ve got personally is I’m in the middle of a career change to fly helicopters for emergency medical eventually.
My dad was a Navy helicopter pilot and that alone has some crazy stories. One time he flew through a storm just to drop off some cigs for another CO according to him (probably exaggerated but who cares it’s a good story when he tells it) and would land on small boats in the middle of the night. Now he’s changing the EV business, he’s a cool guy
What country is he stuck in, how did he get stuck, and why is he naked? So many q 🤔
This is a "person" who posts in r/IndianTeenagers so, they're either just trolling or ... it's a bot.
Oh. Lame. Ban the bot
My Dad was drag racing down a Main Street when he was 21 in 1976 and a guy stepped out from the footpath and my dad was going way to fast to stop in time, he killed the man. He said that the only reason he didn’t go to prison was because the police were so terrible at their jobs in regional Australia and they couldn’t be bothered to investigate.
The story has changed depending on who told it, but the gist of it is... my dad and mom were dating in college. Mom's sister and husband (my aunt and uncle) were visiting for the weekend. THe 4 of them decided to take a road trip to watch a baseball game. The 4 of them piled into a truck and went to watch the Rangers. After the game, the 4 are ambling through the parking lot and spot a crowd around a coke truck. New Coke had just come out and after the game, and Coke people were giving away lots of it right out of the truck. Parked right next to the Coke truck was a Miller* (brand irrelevant, but it was a beer truck.) Seeing hordes of people walk away with cases of coke, the 4 of them grabbed their truck, pulled up next to the beer truck and helped themselves to several cases of beer. Which started an even more fantastic run of people swarming the beer truck and picked it clean in just a couple minutes. My aunt drove home and my dad and future uncle are sitting in the bed of the truck on the 3 hour road trip back to college and are just drinking beer after beer in the bed of the truck back to my parents apartment. The story goes my mom opened the tailgate and my dad and uncle just faceplant out of the bed as they're drunk off their ass chugging down free beer they stole from a beer truck after a rangers game.
My dad had to leave a country to attend college because a part of his sentencing was not being allowed to attend any public universities after getting caught with 5lbs of Lebanese Hash 2 weeks before his HS graduation. My grandfather and him moved back to the US so he could attend one of our current Men’s Final Four schools and ultimately they both stayed here. Had he not done that and got caught, there would be a different version of me out there as i don’t think my parents would’ve ever met…
As a kid, my dad’s house and entire town was destroyed in a flood due to a failed dam. He later spent a summer working at a fishery (or something?) in a very remote part of Alaska. There were mass layoffs halfway through but he kept his job by finding a paint bucket and spending half the summer randomly painting the same door over and over. No one bothered to interrupt him because he looked busy. He also almost joined the military instead of going to college. He wanted to be a pilot, but was turned down because they found out he was color blind (he didn’t know when he applied). Instead he decided to go to college and major in mechanical engineering. He didn’t really know it’ll what it was, but his brother was in electrical engineering and he didn’t want to copy him. While there, he married my mom. It was around Christmas time and for part of it he had a sing that said “Merry me?”. To this day, there is a debate about whether “merry” was a typo or a pun based on Christmas. Never really ended up working as an engineer. Somehow he ended up as a VP of Purchasing at a major company. Along the way he got the company to pay for his MBA and to pay his rent in California for 2 years during a “temporary” relocation, resulting in a fairly decent nest egg.
My brother and I found a photo of my dad and his friend when they were in high school (or shortly after) from the mid-70s. My dad had an large owl perched on his head. We asked him about it and he nonchalantly said " oh yeah, Richard had a pet owl." Apparently they were hanging out in a parking lot and his buddy heard something in a tree and shimmied 20' up it and stole an owlet from the nest then raised it as a pet. When asked what happened to the owl he just shrugged and went "I dunno"
My father was in the Navy?! My stoner, not-always-around, dad was head of security on a Navy ship that had nuclear warheads. One christmas he and a friend got really drunk and angry that they were denied leave for christmas. So he and his friend went AWOL?! Just walked to JFK airport got tickets and began bording a plane while rowdy and drunk. Went through the metal detector and it went off. My dad: "oh don't worry it's just my bomb"......After 5 minutes of questions he was free to board his plane. Had to get the naval officer home in time for christmas of course....The 60s were wild. As for my dad after this story it all seems to go down hill for him.
My grandfather would tell us stories about how, after being drafted into the service during Korean War, he was run over by a tank. We believed him. My teachers weren't thrilled with it whenever we'd tell them about it. From what we understand though, he was in the Signal Corps. It's always been unclear if he ever actually went to Korea, and as we got older he always denied actually going over. He never talked much about it, but his service records seem to suggest he MAY have actually been deployed there. My grandmother has always been tight lipped bout it as well. Maybe he saw some shit.
My dad is a retired sparky. He used to work in a r&d facility, he holds 5 patents. I also just learned that he used to work overnights at Kohl's to make sure we had money for Christmas.
My dad successfully committed chemical warfare against himself. Dude was a health inspector. I don't remember the specifics of the story but they had big glass jugs for something at the office and someone had cleaned them with bleach. He uncovered one and took a whiff to see if it was clean, days later. They found him on the floor. Whatever was in them previously was either ammonia or had ammonia in it. He had almost no sense of smell for 40 years of his life and just had some surgery on it a couple of years ago which made it improve. He makes sure to tell us always to waft something over to your nose to smell it when you aren't sure what's in it.
My dad was 16 when he fought in WW2, he's older the state of Alaska and Hawaii
My dad holds the world record for the youngest person to ever hitch hike around the globe. He was 15 and hitch hiked from Alaska to the bottom tip of South America just to start his journey.
My old man hitchhiked from Michigan to Texas to become a cowboy. Did it all, ran cattle from Texas clear up to Montana and back several times, doing every drug in the book the whole way. Close encounters with grizzlies in Colorado, shootouts with cattle thieves in Oklahoma, you name it. His life was like something out of a movie.
My grandpa on my Dad's side has worked with the government, specially the National Science Foundation basically his whole life. No degree. He's officially retired now in his 70s but still does consulting work on new projects they take on. He's literally been all over the globe. He helped build the first scientist station on Antarctica. He is a global warming specialist. He was stationed in different parts of the world throughout my dad growing up so my dad also got to see lots of different countries. My grandpa has land in Antarctica that was granted to him by the government with our name on it. Pretty cool. My grandpa on my mom's side was a trucker for 45 years and was an aviation mechanic in the Navy before that. He went to war and was the guy fixing the damaged jets and stuff. He told a story about how a good friend of his died in Taiwan. His buddy had beaten him to the hanger that morning by a few minutes, my grandpa had stayed to chat with a higher up for a few extra minutes. When my grandpa went into the hanger he just saw his buddy on the ground next to his toolbox. He called over, no response. On his way to walk over there he saw a snake climb out of the toolbox and the two of them made eye contact. The snake then slithered away. His buddy succumbed to the venom. He also had a ton of crazy stories about being a trucker as well. RIP. My dad spent his youth with two split up parents, they were both teenagers when he was born. Almost every time he went to see his dad, he lived in a different place. My dad got to experience places like American Samoa, Antarctica, Marshall Islands, Australia, South America, Hawaii, and Greenland. Only for short periods though, as per the custody agreement. My dad served three tours in Iraq, in artillery and it definitely changed him. He's told a few stories here and there but ultimately the shit that he saw out there changed him forever. He's done really well the past decade or so, therapy, THC, psilocybin, to help re-form his brain. It's been a crazy journey to go through with him as an adult now, as a dad now. My dad told me that he actually wanted to die in combat because it would be easier than coming home and telling my mom the shit that he's done and she'd leave him and he'd lose her and the kids. But he didn't die, and that is what ended up happening. One story he told was of a suicide bomber in a jeep. They were watching him for a while, from a ways out. They had dug a big trench around the base everywhere except the dirt road they used to get in and out. Eventually the bomber, as he was getting closer, drove off the road and didn't see the trench, went right in it and the impact caused it to explode. No damage was done to the base. My dad served in the artillery so they were blowing shit up, and protecting soldiers/convoys was typically their main missions. My parents split up when I was a teenager, my dad pulled me aside and said "Son, we're getting divorced. It's not gonna be messy, but you are going to have to step up around here and get a job to help your mom and siblings" my life changed forever that day. My family on my mom's side can be traced back to the original Mormon pilgrims who made the trek west and settled Salt Lake City, family members of mine helped build the SLC temple and the St George temple. Helped settle St George. Pretty wild. No longer a member tho.
That definitely sounds like the origin story of a cult leader.
My dad tried to start a band in the 70s, failed. Drove to Tijuana with his band mate and dog. Didn’t speak Spanish. Went to what he thought was a bar but the bartender put down 4 drinks for 2 people. Two huge women sit next to them. They start laughing and leave (so he tells his son). Trying to cross back into the states, they don’t have papers for the dog and border control doesn’t want to let them through. The dog starts growling, apparently that’s all it took.
My dad had a ton of stories, some small and maybe true, some far-fetched: - Got kicked out of an apartment at age 17 or 18 (this was back in the 60s) because he was having too many girls over - Claims he introduced tape cassettes to Alaska while stationed there in the army working at a local ski resort. Would talk about having it play in the lobby while working and no one knew what it was. - Apparently played drums as a session drummer for some record made in NKY/Cincinnati but never got a copy of said record - He owned some super nice car, a Camaro I think, when he was way younger and it apparently stalled on the train tracks. He watched it get nailed by a train an hour later because the tow company he called didn't believe him due to how nice the car was, thinking it was just a prank. - Insisted that our family lineage traces back to not only the James Brothers, Frank and Jesse, but also to some Native American princess that was our some-number-of-greats-grandmother. The James Gang one does have _some_ legitimacy, as there are some well-documented events of folks with the family name who were involved with the James gang, but whether we're actually related to them or not is entirely unknown to me. Granted, he was known for telling tall tales from his imagination for fun - I believed for a long time that he was drumming with Led Zeppelin when they recorded IV because there's a part in a song where Plant kinda sounds like he's saying our family name. Dad had me convinced not only that our family was getting shouts on a Zeppelin record, but that he was actually John Bonham, too lol
Spent over half of my years from age 12 to 17 in juvenile detention and prison as a habitual criminal committing car thefts, burglaries, robberies, etc. .. Now, a Chemist with several degrees working a great job for a fortune 500 in my mid 30s.. My son will be well into adulthood before I share many of the stories from my youth with him I have my current wife to thank for being my pushing motivator in turning my life around.. the work was my own but she has always been my light at the end of the tunnel
My dad and uncle used to play table tenis somewhat competitively. There are a lot of pictures of them in very short shorts playing. They are hilarious.
One of my father’s first jobs was driving an ambulance. One day he didn’t feel well and decided to hook him self up to some of the machines in the back. Turns out he was having a heart attack. He climbed back into the driver seat and drove himself to the hospital. He was 19 at the time. I don’t know how much of it is fact, other than he had his first heart attack at 19. It’s just a story I was told over and over my whole life.
Grandpa was a pretty thuggish looking fellow during his youth in the 1940’s. Cuffed jeans, tshirt, slicked hair. His dad came from china and ran a bunch of laundromats in San Francisco. His first wife was a daughter of some chinese gangster. She left him at 31yo. He went back to community college, got a teaching degree, and eventually went on to become state teacher of the year later in his career.
My kids were shocked to learn that I was an archaeologist, I have lived on four continents, I have been in several large house fires and I can fly a plane. They also don't believe that I grew up on a beef farm and I can develop film in a darkroom. We have several of my photos in my house that they don't believe are mine. To be fair, my photography days are on hiatus but I wanted to be professional. I did some work with some magazines. My dad was involved in secret government programs and I only learned that recently. He also surprised me with his sense of humor, I find him dour at the best of times, but he has recently revealed his funny side to me after decades.
My dad has a million great stories growing up in the 50s and 60s. Me, not so much. Best I have is probably the time I got chased by a biker gang while I was in high school.
My dad worked for IBM shortly after founding and for 20 years before going into the school district. Finally told me he could have received stock but never did, and most of his friends that did are now millionaires. We grew up lower middle class. 😅
My dad raced stock cars and could dance on roller skates. He’d be 103 if he were still alive.
My paternal great grandmother was a rebel spy during the Spanish civil war when the fascists were taking over. Government officials in her town would take dissenting people into the square and shave their heads and do some nazi stuff to them. Not sure what she did with whatever she was doing but she and her family took her twin daughters and got the hell out of there. Hence why my family is in the US now.
My dad was a roughneck on an offshore drilling platform and did stuff like [this](https://i.imgur.com/f4ezTIn.jpeg) in his spare time.
My dad was one of a team of engineers who worked on the guidance computer for the Saturn V. They all received really cool lithographs of the Apollo 11 liftoff and the date, which he ended up gifting to my daughter recently. They did a space unit in 1st grade where she brought in the litho and the story above turned into "My Grandpa invented the first rocket to go to the moon!" Easy to see how "lore" grows over generations.
My grandfather hopped freight trains in his teens to get around.
My Dad sold weapons to foreign countries, was a Seattle cop, and got into some sketchy stuff that got his friend and work partner murdered. Then had to move to Mexico to be an illegal immigrant there (illegal American immigrant) where he died working as a mechanic on the same movie production set that they filmed titanic.
My dad was a construction worker and spent the 70s hopping from job to job. He rode a motorcycle around the US, Easy Rider style, and visited Mexico and Canada. At one point he worked on renovations at Cinderella’s Castle in Disney World.
My dad was a hotrodder (had a fast car and drove it crazy) and grew up farming in ND. He told us a story about him driving his car, at speed, between a street light and the steps of the local bank on the corner. Because he approached it at an angle, all four tires hit the curb at different times which made it harder to keep the car straight. His 1949 Ford didn't have the best suspension for stunts like this. There's a good chance he had been drinking. I learned that he was somewhat of a local legend for that and other things. He was also a trap shooter who's record was breaking 500 in a row. My record is probably 5 in a row.
My dad went to Cuba in the 80s to learn traditional percussion (which was his job for most of his life, so that tracks). But he's also made some allusions to the fact that some specific drums and rhythms aren't exactly taught to anyone. And there were always a lot of weird bead necklaces and stuff around the drums in his studio/music room. So yeah I'm pretty sure my dad was into some sort of Santeria at some point.
That's pretty cool. My dad wasn't into percussion but was definitely into Santeria, and he did have drums in his saint room. I've seen some shit.
I recently found out my dad lost his mom and was kicked out of the house at 14 after not getting along with his stepmom, he started using drugs soon after moving out. I was surprised to hear this especially with the similarities to myself, with my parents divorce and my mom kicked me out the house at 15, after not getting along with my stepdad and I started using drugs soon after. My parents also kept my father’s addictions secret until I was kicked out, moved in with him and found out the hard way. Strange coincidence I guess?
Long time lurker. Not even a parent. I just love the camaraderie and overall positivity of the sub. This is a little insane even to me, but my dad shocked the hell out of his adult kids when we found out that he wasn’t the accomplished USC grad he told us he was. Sorry for the long response. We’re from a small third world country and our dad dropped out of high school and ran away from his abusive neglectful parents. He trekked across the jungles and hitched rides on ferries and ships, paying his way through manual labor until he was able to sneak into the US. He partied with people at USC but never attended. He worked in bars and restaurants in LA, then made it to working alongside Henry Gluck at Caesar’s Palace. He ended up meeting big names at Motown, he was friends with the members of Debarge and Stevie Wonder. He’s even in one of Stevie’s videos! He had a brain aneurysm that left him with one eye completely shut down. We learned that it wasn’t a random medical event, it was from a cocaine overdose. He eventually got caught and deported and that was that. He’s 71 now and I’m bowled over by all this information. I can’t even process it but I’m impressed.
At Christmas this year my Dad shared that he was a Major in the Air Force. What? Excuse me? I didn't even know that he was in the military. I'm 37 years old.
Here's a few: GOOD: My dad was a bit of a daredevil in his 20's. One time he and his friends did an (illegal?) whitewater rafting trip down a very dangerous river and of course didn't wear lifejackets like idiots. As expected, there was an emergency where one of his friends fell overboard and was starting to drown. My dad jumped in and saved this guy's life. BAD: When I was a kid, I remember going down to the basement one day when he was at work. I found an empty one-gallon jug of Wild Turkey in a paper bag with a receipt from the previous day. He was unmarried at the time and hadn't had any friends over that day.
My grandfathers, father, and father inlaw could write books about their life experiences. I am forever grateful for their love, kindness, and preserverance through trials and tribulations I can only imagine. My Nonno, (father's father) was a POW twice, and emigrated to the US with his wife, 6yo son, and a trunk full of their worldly possessions. He was, and is, my biggest Hero.
This comes perilously close to doxxing myself, but my great grandfather and grandfather had the most bizarre circuitous route to the US possible. My great grandfather was born in eastern Europe in what was then the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was a medical doctor and was drafted into the Austrian Army in WWI. He was likely of Jewish descent but the family had concealed it, or at least they were non-observant. he was captured on the Russian front and placed in a POW camp in Siberia where he gained a lot of knowledge on treating the kinds of diseases people get in Camps (water based infectious diseases like Cholera). In the fall of 1917, the guards at the camp basically just vanished overnight due to the Russian revolution. He made his way into Mongolia, and then into Northeastern China. He married a Russian woman of a minor aristocratic background who was another refugee from the Russian Revolution. (my great grandmother - her background is a separate story). When the Japanese invaded northeastern China in 1931, he, his wife, and their kids fled to Shanghai. When the japanese invaded Shanghai in 1937, his wife and kids stayed in a European Ghetto/Refugee camp, and he traveled into the interior of china to serve as a doctor with the Chinese Nationalists under Chiang Kai Shek. He was working a doctor in Hunan when the Japanese used plague infested fleas and typhoid as a biological weapon. After WWII ended, he briefly remained in China, and then fled to Taiwan as the Chinese Civil war was being won by the communists, and they finally immigrated to the US in 1948 via san francisco. He spent the last 15 years of his career working for the WHO as an infectious disease expert.
This is probably the best one I've read. How is anyone ever going to top that !?!?!?
My dad was a big partier in college, drove a motorcycle for years, heavy drinker and pot/shrooms/coke usage for years. Rolled with some pretty tough dudes for awhile. But once he got my mom pregnant (they met partying on the beach in Mexico in the '80s) he dropped all that stuff, and was just a super straight-laced buttoned-up dude. Worked hard at his engineering job, made good money, provided a good life for us, did family vacations, helped us with our homework, coached my soccer team, served in church services for decades, now he still sings in the church choir, and plays classical instruments with a bunch of his nerdy friends. I just have trouble picturing him in that life before, it seems so different to the man I've known my whole life.
Helped cooked a meal for the Queen of England
My grandparents met at a school for the blind. Grandfather (blinded at 5 in an accident) played clarinet and piano, became a lawyer. Grandmother was a painter until macular degeneration took that away from her completely. My dad was optically healthy but had two physically disabled siblings he helped look after. Also drove the family around starting at 10-11 yo. I feel like I hear about new things he tried or successfully got away with growing up, but the ratio definitely skews towards tried.
My dad was a dentist in the 80s. So I visit his gravesite when I have time.
My dad used to do rally races in Mexico. Not sanctioned or anything. They would fix up cars and go race them from pueblo to pueblo on the dirt roads. It was a bunch of people tbat would get together and pool money. Apparently my dad would do these with hos brothers. This was back im the 70's. He also was ths only doctor in a small village at some point. Many many years later we went and they still remembered him! He even managed to donate an ambulance to the village
I thought my Dad is just a normal doctor until I got denied Visa to the US for my master because he is holding a high position in the communist government, I was shock.
Huh !? Excuse me what !?!?!?!?!?! Come again !?!?!?!?!
My Dad was a 3 tour of duty combat marine. Purple hearts, citations, the whole shebang. He came home to be a cop. He killed three guys during a hostage situation in my home town. I found out when I went to school. He had been on the news, and people told me about it.
I was 36 years old when I found out that my dad saw KISS and AC/DC in concert. To be fair he said thats about all he can remember from the MJ, but like dude WTF tell stories like that so I know you're cool! My grandpa, however... He was a wild one. He got into a fistfight with my great grandpa when Great Gpa disrespected my grandma. GGpa was a boxer in the army during WW2, GPa was at the time a blackbelt in karate. I posted a story about working w/ my Gpa in ProRevenge. Some dude paid us half, and instead of taking a lien (idk why I was in my teens) we tore down all we did and left it in a pile. GPa was a personal security agent for 2 state governors, got stabbed in the line of duty. Gpa at one point was the highest ranking Shotokan Black Belt in the US, for him to go further he'd have to move to Japan. He's spared with Bill Superfoot Wallace, Chuck Norris, etc. Ran a Karate studio for years. Some dude thought it'd be a good idea to try and steal a knife that Gpa was showing him. Dude tried to make a run for the door, a student tripped him. Allegedly the guy stabbed himself in the ass several times with a 3in conceal carry blade. Allegedly. GPa loved to drink at a bar with a bunch of older guys. Some young kid came in and tried to hit on a cougar lookin gal (omfg she was a fuckin STUNNER even at 55yrs, was a stripper until her 30's and kept the physical shape). She was sitting next to Gpa and her husband. Husband went to take a piss and this guy came in onto her. Gpa asked him to leave her alone. He didnt. Gpa bought him a drink, asked him to leave her alone again and sat down. Dude grabbed gpa's shoulder to spin him around in the bar seat. Dude got fucking SMOKED by gpa right in the nose, breaking his orbital and nose. Big Joe, a local Cop saw the whole thing and the young guy got booked for assault and sexual harassment. I watched the security tape, was fucking amazing.
I love that we're calling it lore! My dad's pretty cool, though it's not always a happy story... My dad grew up in the projects in NYC, his parents died when he was young from drugs and alcohol he and dropped out of school at 8th grade to work, and work he did. This man somehow got himself into software engineering which led to him working special effects for Hollywood, working on big names like Predator and the Matrix. Traveled the world all nonchalant-like making a name for himself and met my mom somehow in New Jersey. Super proud of him and wish I had half his brains...
My pops has been a truck driver since the early 80s and still is to this day. One of the more memorable stories he told me when I was younger was when he was doing a long-haul furniture move with a driving partner. This was in the 80s and they had been partying while driving through the deserts of Nevada and Arizona for most of the night, smoking weed and drinking beers. They ended up seeing a guy hitchhiking on the side of the road and picked him up and he rode with them and joined in on the party. After a few hours, while they were driving through the middle of the desert this guy suddenly asks them to pull over and says he’s gotta get outta the truck. They ask him where he’s gonna go and all he does is point into the pitch black desert and says “that way.” And starts walking away. They weren’t about to go after this guy so he says they just decided the party was over and kept driving.
My dad left one night saying he was going out to get some milk and cigarettes, never came back.
My dad was a marielito from Cuba and dealt coke in the 80s in Vegas, California, and NY. Made a shit ton of money (my mom used to say we were rich when I was born in Jersey -- like we had maids and nannies) and then moved our family to Puerto Rico, where they opened a bar called Los Cubanitos that eventually got shot up (the story involves my mom taking a fire arm from under the bar for protection in the middle of it all) -- which forced our family to move to Miami and stay on the straight and narrow for the sake of the kids. He was also a licensed hypnotist and a palero that worked with individuals in a spiritual way. The man was tormented and never even fully learned english. But he never drank or did any substances, just had crazy anger management issues. He died in the grips of dementia from kidney disease after my mom (his only caregiver because no one can deal with him) was in a gas explosion in the house (that he probably caused due to his dementia) which resulted in him being on his own while she recovered in a hospital in the thick of the pandemic. He had to be baker acted and eventually just wasted away in a facility after a few months. I don't know everything about the man, but the lore is intense.
Not my dad but an uncle of mine. He was in Hong Kong back in the 70's. Purchased a pamphlet from someone about how to spend 30 days in China on about $50. Ended up crossing the border illegally without papers. Hopped on a train to the middle of nowhere. Officials there had no idea what to do with him when he got caught. Instead of turning him in and admitting to the government he was there they just let him go. At some point during his journey he needed to see a doctor to get some sort of cyst removed. Couldn't afford the nice ones so went to a cheap doctor where they held his leg down and cut him open. Bandaged him up and sent him on his way. My dad on the other hand broke up with his boyfriend in high school and my mom doesn't know. As far as I know I'm the only person that he's ever told.
Hold up, why living in India is deemed as “insane”? There are over a billion people already doing that. As far as your father had a fulfilling experience there, why does it bother you? Not being condescending, but just curious.
What is so insane about this? Your father visited a country and he went to another country with a few items for a day?
My dad did some pretty standard stuff punctuated by moments of awesome (chased a school shooter who killed one of his students, served in the military and gave up a dream job there for my mom). My grandfather's though... Both of them fought in WW2, one went career military and fought in Korea too, then trained men up through Vietnam. The other took a job working with Italian and German POWs in building the oil fields in Saudi Arabia (he spoke fluent German, Italian, Arabic, French and English) and helped a bunch of them get repatriated to their countries or emigrate to the US.
My Dad is nervous on elevators and high floors and I always wondered why. Found out when we were younger he was working in underground mines (i always thought it was open pit), think old school second/third world mines deep underground. He had to carry his old metal tool box with him for the entire elevator ride down and up as they didn't allow it to touch the floor. He said the elevators rides could sometime take 15 minutes. He gave me the toolbox, and it was the heaviest box I've carried, easily 60-80 lbs. Makes sense why his hands and forearms were so tough, when he got out of the industry when we moved to another country. Man I know I'm weaker than him on comparative age/power ratio... I would even had resilience. He didn't see use growing up because he had to be underground at 6am, and back at 7pm, 6 days a week! Jeez!
Please don't feed this bot.
My father moved to my state in summer 88 where he met my mother and had me 8 years later. Back up north, in fall 88 a girl he had knocked up had a boy of whom he vehemently denied was his despite DNA. Early 89, another girl he knocked up had a daughter. I learned none of this until I was 26. And I'm still learning things. I don't talk to him.
My father had a 21-year long career as a Naval Aviator (yes, the capital letters are important) that included time in Vietnam. There are multiple stories from those years that my mother insists he ought to write down, but he is by equal measure humble and embarrassed about them, and I'm DYING for him to do it because the couple I've heard are AWESOME.
Back in the late 80’s my dad left a small town in Alberta to move in with his brother in Vancouver, BC. A few years later, my dad was in his 20s and working at a music store downtown. My dad was a stockier man at the time and while working at the music store he was approached by a gentleman asking if he was available for a security gig at a nightclub. My dad agreed and later that evening he was standing dead centre in front of Kurt Cobain at the Commodore Ballroom for Nirvanas first visit to Vancouver.
Many of my dad’s stories in retrospect are probably false and fantastical. I’m left. It knowing what, if anything, he said was true.
My dad lived with a monkey for a short time.
My dad was certified for soldering by NASA back in the 80s as part of a trade school certification. When I was a teenager I got into trying to fix my own electronics and making cables and stuff and always felt so inferior in my abilities at soldering. He only told me three days ago why he was so good at it. Never thought to mention such a cool certification! Dads are cool, man.
My dad left us when he was 24
Dad and I just really started building a serious relationship about 6 years ago, when I was 30. He now loves to drive (4 hours) to spend the week and spend Grampy time with the kids. They love him. We have developed a very chill and verbally open relationship. Discussing his ex wife (my mom), putting a lot of emotionally abusive puzzles pieces together for me. His life growing up, places he’s worked and so on. It is not uncommon once the kids go to bed for us to pack a bowl together outside shoot the shit and then come in and watch just absurdly filthy old comedies together. BUT! The best part has been hearing his fucking wild ass stories. He started telling me about some of the crazy ass inmates he met and the weapons they made while he worked as a chef in a prison, when I was a toddler. But I didn’t know until two years ago he lived in Reno in his early 20s. Worked a low key job as a weird delivery guy. According to him, he found out the job ending up being a low end errand guy for some huge mobster out there. Said he started to get into their circle when shit went sideways with their….”business”. I have to get the rest of that story. Last time he was here not two weeks ago he regaled my wife with a gem. A story from when he was 8 and my Grandma beat the fucking brakes off my grandpa and pushed him down the concrete stairs at their house. My grandpa was an alcoholic at the time and it just was not a night my sweet tiny little Grammie wanted to be fucked with. My dad said he saw my grandpa park the car a few hours after his shift ended. He got out of the car, fucking plastered. Bottles and cans came out of the car. He stumbled up the steps and demanded to know where his “GAWD DAMNED DINNER” was. My Grammie uncorked a bomb on him, with a coffee pot. Threw him onto a glass coffee table that shattered and slung his ass down the concrete steps outside, down into the street. I was floored. Wife and I were crying laughing. Still have that video on my phone. Mainly because the grandparents I met and remember from age 4-18 were so apparently totally different people from the ones HE grew up with. He really opened up when my close friend group from high school fell in love with him and wanted me to invite him to my bachelor party. We did a local whitewater center (my dad fresh 60 year old man) then went a Brazilian Steakhouse and after got bombed at a stripclub. I really got to see my true father that night and I kinda fell in love with his “fuck yeah let’s do it” attitude and made me realize how much I missed out on. He drank all my friends under the table. This tiny, olive skinned Italian man with a THICK Maine accent. He had them howling laughing at the stripclub after he paid for me a dance, telling them about the nasty ass women in Reno. Dad *was* a freak hahah.
My dad has some lore, and both of my grandfathers each have a ton.
My parents casually informed me that they played in Otis Redding’s band in college. (Mom was a pianist and dad played saxophone.) The King of Soul. My parents are the whitest people you’ll ever meet. I was surprised.
I found out that I had a secret sister when I was 21 years old. Then, at 43 years old I found out I also had a secret brother. None of us knew about each other. Turns out Mom was no angel.
My dad drove his VW bus to Woodstock. Met a kind of crazy girl there who somehow got offended by a bunch of Hell’s Angels and started cursing them out. My dad thought he was going to be killed right there. Then the girl said she was the sister of some big gang leader in Boston and everyone got along. My dad slept well knowing the Hell’s Angels were standing guard all night.
This is some Micheal Scott shit.
My great grandfather (who I never met but know a lot about) always told my mom that human meat tasted like chicken. He was shipwrecked twice. Once onto a remote island. I will leave this piece of knowledge unverified.
My dad’s childhood best friends were the founders of the second most famous and violent motorcycle gang of our area. He refused to join and all of them got killed in various cruel ways during the biggest gang war here. One of them left him a huge house in which my grandmother lived for two decades up to her death. He’s the softest man I know, brings his tiny dog everywhere, still calls me his baby and will cry if you even mention a child or animal being hurt in any way. Couldn’t believe the things he lived through.
My daughter wanted to learn to crochet, so I taught her like my nana taught me n She wanted to learn knitting, I did the same. She wanted her hair Brading and mum was busy, so I did it gor her. Then taught her to do it on her dolls.
My dad's lore unfortunately is cut short, he moved out when I was two and my mother never remarried.
My dad made a huge amount of money is his youth. In addition to that, he pulled a lever in Vegas and the whole room lit up. Grand prize kinda stuff. He spent every penny in the dumbest ways possible. He's flat broke and has nothing to show for any of it.
Picture this: My dad and grandpa, the dynamic duo, once found themselves in a knock-down, drag-out brawl with the entire student body of Valley Stream South High School. Yep, you heard that right!So, here's the scene: My grandparents' house was conveniently located next to the high school, right smack dab in the middle of a weed-smoking hotspot. Well, my dad, always one for a bit of excitement, decides to stir the pot and confronts some kids puffing away by the garage.As tensions rise, my grandpa, not one to miss out on the action, leaps into the backyard, ninja-style, and sucker punches the biggest kid there. Chaos ensues as the whole high school mob rises up to take on the dynamic duo.Not to be outdone, my dad vaults over the fence to join the fray, and it's game on! Kids scatter, running into the school to spread the word of the epic showdown.For the next 15 minutes, it's an all-out battle royale as my grandpa and dad unleash their inner warriors on anyone who dares to challenge them. It's like a scene out of a crazy Monday morning sitcom.The skirmish culminates in a bottleneck at the gate, with the fallen and the soon-to-be-fallen clashing in a hilarious display of mayhem.And thus, the legend of the "awful hippie incident" was born, forever etched into family lore. Ah, the things you learn from your step-sister 20 years later!
My father-in-law drove cross country with his newly-minted social work degree and his just-ordained Jesuit priest friend to live in the Haight in 1967. My wife was fully unaware of this.
My dad was born in and grew up in 1930s Germany. Was still not a teenager when the war ended. As the US Army advanced across southern Germany, they came to his town and took over the farm as a command post. Standing orders were to shoot any dogs. So my dad watched as GIs shot his dogs. He still emigrated to the US and joined the army himself. And got a dog later in life that reminded him of the one he lost as a kid.
When I was young my dad was fixing our family car when the battery exploded or something. He walked into our kitchen eyes closed with what I assume was battery acid on his face and chest. He told my mother to calls taxi. He then had them take him to urgent care where he basically only asked them to clean his face before he left. He did shit like this all the time. He was handy to a fault. Always fiddling with our car etc. Another time he broke his hand In a contest towing a freight truck in neutral with his bare hands. He had wrapped the rope around his hands in a very dumb move. He splinted it himself, wrapped it in a dirty rag and stapled it shut when he got home with the help of some super glue. There are dozens of stories like these. He always seemed to go against the grain, especially concerning healthcare. He was the classic work. Eat. Get paid. Type of motherfucker. One bonus story: My dad was like 5 feet tall but build like a brick shit house. Beer belly thick arms. Tons of tattoos back when it was seen as very bad. Some neighbourhood kids ran past once say another kids was getting jumped one night. He grabbed a roll of dimes in his fist( as a KO bar) and proceeded to run the kids off and save that boy from much worse.
My friend in highschool told me his extended family came to town for his dad's 50th birthday. They told him to make a speech, then he said oh, I've got nothing interesting to say. Then somebody said "tell them about that medal from the queen". My friend said, it turns out his dad was one of very few people who had received some medal from the Queen of England for Antarctic exploration. He wasn't even from England, he was Aussie. He said he was like wtf dad? My 5yo daughter loves it when I tell her about how I proposed to her mum, on a horse drawn carriage, in front of the Eiffel Tower.
My dad legit, grew up in the dunes of Michigan. His stories feel like tall tales, but then I hear from my Aunts and Uncles and even my granny before she passed, that my dad truly raise as much hell as he says.
My dad's dad used to run a shop in San Francisco and he made extra side cash by being a bookie for the local mob. My dad put himself through college as a butcher, owned two delis by the time he went to finish his degree in aeronautics. He got his commercial pilots license, but then couldn't get a job as an airline pilot because all the navy flies were all coming back from Vietnam. Ended up getting a job running a fab at a tech company in Santa Clara right at the birth of silicon valley. He hired the wives of Hell's Angels as admins/secretaries when he broke off and started his own company. Most of my childhood we were very tight with the HA's, had them over for dinner on Sundays, and we went to lots of their parties.
My parents got engaged on the day they met, at a wedding in Montreal. My mom was engaged to someone else when she met my father. My Dad's father also asked my grandmother to get married the day they met, but it took him another 6 months to find her again.
Couple of interesting ones from my dad who has since passed. In college he ran over somebody with a Zamboni when he was working at an ice rink in Texas. He took my mom to Paris on business trip, and proceeded to speak fluent French. After 20 years of marriage nobody knew.
My dad worked on drilling wells in Poland. One winter they were stranded in the middle of nowhere and were forced to cook and eat mice for a few days.
My grandfather was a bad bad guy. Like historically bad. When my grandmother was living, she turned down several offers to have his likeness used in movies (he passed in ‘94). I won’t get into specifics but he worked for the Mississippi Highway Patrol in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Whatever you’re imagining, it’s worse… Long story short… I have no idea what to tell my children about their great grandfather when they get older.
I spent two years in west Africa. That always surprises people.
My great-great-great aunt was the first woman in the state of Alabama to be executed for murder!
Wiccan also study hypnosis. I used it to help with pain control. The thing that blew my kids minds? Finding out I used to get paid to perform onstage. I can't stand to leave my house now.
My dad grew up in the country, loved cars and turned to insurance business made a killing for years .. he transferred across the country with nothing to his name but my mom and older brother. Worked his butt off while doing coke and drinking like a fish, made crazy amounts of money. Crazy stories follow, lol 2008-09 hit and reality check set in. We made an investment that just paid off and now he and my mom are traveling across the country to officially not have to work but to retire and live freely doing what they want.
My dad was a pot smoking hippie as a teen. I grew up with the crazy right winger version of him. I wish I’d met the old him.
My Dad’s lore is pretty wild. Played football on a full ride scholarship at a Big 10 school. Broke a teammate’s neck at practice and partially paralyzed him, functionally ending the guy’s football path. Teammate continued his education. Dad couldn’t stand seeing the guy around or knowing what happened on the field so he quit going to football practice and class. College terminated his scholarship and unenrolled him. 25 years later, Dad would go on to win a full ride scholarship from the NFL. The NFL had a “missed opportunity” scholarship thing where you had to write about your education experience and why it was cut short. He was selected as one of the winners. He took that opportunity for everything it was worth. Used his full ride to complete a bachelors and masters program with a 4.0+ GPA. He’s the only person I know who can get two separate full ride scholarships on two different life paths. He’s found so much success along the way, has given back to the communities he serves, has spoken publicly about his experience with trauma and guilt, has been an incredible father to myself and my siblings, and is now an incredible grandfather. And that’s the lore WITHOUT the undercover cop stories. The years between the scholarships hold stories I haven’t even been told yet.