Family lore: Two (mostly true) stories of a drunk and a worthy brother.

[oak]

I give you two tales from my (estranged) family of origin, each story having a foolish drunk and a worthy brother.

I name names.

Are these stories true? Sure!

Do they reflect my current need to escape a job ruined by inflation? Hell yes.

tldr/summary: I come from a long line of survivors: brothers and sisters who saw what was happening and made immediate changes.

Story 1, 1890

My mother's grandfather, a drunk fool named Cornelius, is a railroad switchman. His dumb ass forgets to do his one job. His work buddy (name unknown, but a worthy brother), who is as smart and observant as old Corny is stupid and willfully ignorant, sees that the train is about to crash and switches the track at the last second, saving many lives.

Story 2, 1930

My grandfather (father's father) is named RJ, who proves to be a worthy brother, has a drunk fool of a father. This drunk fool's name was John.

This drunk fool chose drinking over feeding his ten children, with RJ being the oldest and in his late teens, so my kick-ass grandfather RJ got to work in the fields.

"Besides being an exceedingly difficult way to make a living, this job won't provide for my siblings. There must be a better way" RJ reasons with himself.

RJ, being as smart as John and f*ucking Cornelius are stupid, immediately enrolls in a mail-order lesson to become an electrician. He leaves the fields for a factory, and works his way up to a critical role in plant that made half-tracks in WWII. As in: if RJ messes up him job, then half-tracks don’t get made, and American soldiers die.

An important, responsible brother.

He provides for his siblings, all of who lead worthy lives. RJ even jettisons the backwards prejudices that old John, his idiot father, taught him. RJ has much better things to do than cling to racism, including holding newborn me, a few weeks before he died.

The lesson?

If something is wrong, the time to act is now. Trains will crash, people will starve. Let's try something, right now.

In the meantime, your worthy example lives on, work friend and RJ. Respect.

[rivergirl]

Thank you for sharing, Oak. RJ is a great role model. I've seen you effect many changes during the time we've both been here on this forum. I have no doubt you will make further positive changes in your life.

[Mental Fairy]

Wow Oak that is quite something my friend. It is profoundly interesting the history that trickles down through family lines.

There tends to be a shinning light amongst some really crappy family history’s. Being in a small county made up of little leg room it feels like everyone knows someone’s family members, made a baby with one or two of them and taken off to the next island to repeat!

With the Māori and European history also in the mix someone ate someone’s great great grandfather!
Really do enjoy NZ history, we have some fantastic historical stuff.

[oak]

My good friends RiverGirl and MentalFairy! Thank you for your encouraging posts. I appreciate them more than I can describe.

Happy update:

Channeling my inner grandfather RJ, since my sleep apnea is a little better I woke up 1.5 hours earlier, went to the grocery store, walked in the town square, and used LinkedIn Learning (formerly lynda.com) to take a half hour to teach myself the rudiments of data visualization. This week I hope to have completed a course about Excel pivot tables.

Said another way:

1930: My smart-cookie grandfather took a mail correspondence course for electrician skills.
2022: His survivor grandson, me, is taking an online course about data visualization.

Different centuries, same values and principles.

Aside from (supposedly important) blood ties I am more connected to this man by finding fight within ourselves, openly acknowledging a problem exists, asking for help, and then making ourselves more useful to the larger society.

I hope I prove myself worthy of RJ's inheritance to me.

Edit to add: feel free to share your own families' stories of Goofuses and Gallants

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goofus_and_Gallant