Nurturing the Next Great Generation

Month: June 2023

A Tale of Two Pilots (and the Generational Value of Longevity).

It was an early morning in July 1918, cloudy with a strong wind blowing as the American pilot flew his Nieuport 28 biplane over Chamery, a hamlet of Coulonges-en-Tardenois not…

It was an early morning in July 1918, cloudy with a strong wind blowing as the American pilot flew his Nieuport 28 biplane over Chamery, a hamlet of Coulonges-en-Tardenois not far from the front lines. His mission:  Scout out and shoot down German reconnaissance. The fields of France were lush and green below, expanding out to the horizon where a glimmer of sun shone through the clouds, with dark trenches coiled through the fields like venomous snakes.

The roar of the planes behind him was his first sign of trouble.

He turned with alarm to see three Fokker Chasse planes bearing down on him from above. He yanked the stick hard to maneuver and climb into a more favorable fighting position, hearing the rattling bursts of machine gun fire growing nearer. It was too late. Within seconds, he was shot twice in the back of the head. His plane turned over on its back and plunged to Earth.

Back home on Long Island, the young man’s father—former President Theodore Roosevelt—mourned deeply from afar. Roosevelt put on a brave face for the press, but many believed he was so heartbroken he never recovered, and died barely a year after his favorite son, Quentin.

In the same French skies that year was another American pilot, Lieutenant Frederick L. Fish. The son of a Vermont State Supreme Court justice, Fred was tall, with short-cut sandy brown hair, a long face with an aquiline nose and clear grey-blue eyes. As he flew, Fred looked down at the battle below, a muddy moonscape of devastation, trenches separated by undulating piles and pits from shell blasts, shattered tree trunks pointing at twisted angles.

Fred pulled the trigger. But instead of firing a machine gun, he was snapping the shutter of a camera mounted to his plane, photographing enemy positions to provide intelligence to army headquarters. Fred was smart. Resourceful. Brave. Lucky as hell.

Fred was also my grandfather.

After the war, Fred Fish became a successful salesman, and in middle age became a Colonel in the Air Force in WWII to help organize allied resources for the D-Day landings.

I got to know Gramp very well, thankfully, when I was a teenager working for him to help manage and clean his rental cottages on our family farm along the shores of Lake Willoughby in Vermont’s remote Northeast Kingdom. The five-mile-long lake was formed when a glacier bore down from the North, cutting a deep trough in the land and splitting one big mountain in two—Mt. Pisgah and Mt. Hor—with steep rock cliffs that slope down to the deep lake waters. The family’s rental cottages, all painted red with white trim, lined a sandy beach and hugged the banks of a brook that flowed from Westmore mountain.

Even then, in the 1970s, Gramp had a commanding presence.

Though bent with age, he was still tall at six foot two, and was quite comfortable giving orders and seeing that they were obeyed without question. He was usually dressed head to toe in khaki, including a cap, and would fix me with his clear eyes and tell me to do this (empty buckets of sewage out of a septic well) or that (rake the beach). Or the Sisyphean task of cleaning the cottages in-between rentals using an upright vacuum that had terrible suction. “You missed a spot!”

I can picture him now vividly as he kicked back at the end of a long day, drinking a Miller High Life in the yard behind the Farmhouse. “Teddy,” he’d say, “there’s no substitute for hard work.”

Gramp lived into his mid-eighties, always active and full of life. He sang hymns in Church, delighting everyone with his vibrant baritone voice. Often down at the beach he’d break into yet another chorus of his favorite song, The Foggy Foggy Dew.

Why does the fact that Gramp survived two wars and lived a long life matter? Why did it matter to him, and—for the purposes of this story—why did it matter to me, my brothers and cousins? Just as important, why did his very nature as a grandfather matter to us, complete with his many tales of adventure and shared wisdom?

It turns out it matters a lot. Not just in the case of my Gramp, but for all grandpas and our loved ones here in America and around the world. The reasons are rooted in the history of humanity itself.

Early humans lived lives that Thomas Hobbes best described as “Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Fossil records indicate that our very earliest ancestors 30,000 years ago lived to about the age of 30. Which meant very few lived long enough to become grandparents. Scientists aren’t sure why Upper Paleolithic Europeans started to live longer into relatively old age, but they surmise that the changes brought about by this longevity had a profound impact on evolution.

When more grandparents came on the scene, things started to change for the better.

“Grandparents,” an article in Scientific American informs us, “contribute economic and social resources to their descendants, increasing both the number of offspring their children can have and the survivorship of their grandchildren.” In other words, having grandpa and grandma hanging out in the cave meant they were there to help raise the kids and dole out essential knowledge. Grandparents could teach, from experience, how to plant seeds to get the best crops. Or a thousand other things that helped the family survive and thrive.

Gramp’s habit of telling stories ladled with wisdom is likely a key reason why several of my four older brothers survived into adulthood.

Here’s one story out of many that shows how Gramp made a difference.

It was Easter, 1969, a lovely spring day in Lexington, Massachusetts, when my family—mom, dad and brothers—loaded into the station wagon and headed over to my grandparents’ house across town for the traditional late afternoon feast of ham, potatoes, peas, pies and handfuls of chocolate Easter eggs.

I was 10 at the time, while my eldest brother, Calvin, was twenty-one, and Charlie, nineteen. Both draft age for Vietnam. Photos taken that day seem inked in pastel hues, all of us in jackets and ties, young and pink-faced.

The war was not far away. Every night we watched Walter Cronkite on the evening news and there was always a tally of the men who had died in Vietnam. My parents were very much against the war and were not shy about saying so. Dad was no stranger to war, having been divebombed by kamikazes at the battle of Okinawa. He often said war was the stupidest thing he’d ever seen, and Vietnam only confirmed his beliefs. He did his part to serve his country but suffered lifelong PTSD. I once witnessed my mom give him food in a red dish, and when he saw the color red he clenched his teeth and screamed, “Blood!”

Having seen dad’s post-war stress up close, Calvin and Charlie were nervous about the draft; there was a lot of nail biting going on.

Calvin was still a bit on the fence, though, about whether he’d go to Vietnam if his draft number came up. He’d been in ROTC and was better prepared than most of his peers to fight. Both my parents hated Richard Nixon. My Gramp and Gram, however, were lifelong Republicans through and through. Even if Nixon wasn’t perfect, they would always support whoever led the Grand Old Party.

After we’d gorged ourselves on Gram’s multi-course dinner, we retired to the living room. Somehow the topic of Vietnam came up. My grandparents never said a word about Vietnam, which is why what Gramp said that day was so astonishing.

Gramp held court in his chair, center stage, while we young men sat nearby in respectful silence. “Well, boys,” Gramp said, “when I went to war the first time, in World War I, they told us it was the war to end all wars. Then came World War II don’t you know, and we had to go back and fight another one. Then there was Korea. And now there’s Vietnam.”

Here Gramp gestured one long hand in the air for emphasis, “All I can tell you is, it’s always the old men who start wars, and it’s the young men who are sent off to fight them.”

None of us said a word in response, but heads nodded. We knew exactly what Gramp’s opinion of Vietnam was without him ever having to be explicit or betray his Republican principles. None of my brothers chose to fight in Vietnam.

Only a man who’d flown above the trenches in France, then returned to Europe to fight again not too long after, and only a man who loved his grandsons more than anything, had the moral credence, love and wisdom required to tell us what he did. My brothers and I lived on to have children and grandchildren of our own.

What are lessons that I and other grandparents can impart to help nourish the next great generation? What role does wisdom play in survival and happiness?

In future posts, I’ll offer up some ideas. Not only mine, but gems of wisdom I’ve heard from other grandparents. If you have suggestions or would like to write a guest post, drop me a line at teddypage@gmail.com.

Gramp in WWI

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Grandparenting Advice from the Boat Lady

In the process of hunting for ways to navigate grandfatherhood, I sought out the advice of my oldest living relative, Aunt Lois, my late mother’s sister. Lois was 95 at…

In the process of hunting for ways to navigate grandfatherhood, I sought out the advice of my oldest living relative, Aunt Lois, my late mother’s sister.

Lois was 95 at the time, frail but sharp as a tack. In her long career Lois was a much-loved music teacher and an accomplished cellist. During WWII she became a pilot to help ferry mail across the United States.

Lois delivering mail in WWII

 

Like my mom, Lois had a sharp, acerbic wit. She and my mom would go for daily dunks in Lake Willoughby wearing matching bathing caps festooned with brightly colored rubber flowers. They’d chat while treading water.

The other thing Lois and my mom had in common was a deep love for their grandchildren. The grandpas I knew loved their grandkids just as much as the grandmas, but it was the grandmas who actually said so. Grandpas showed their love in other ways, like telling stories or simply working with us.

Lois had 6 grandchildren and, thanks to her longevity, lived to enjoy her 5 great-grandchildren as well. Surely, I thought, Lois could speak volumes about how I could be a good grandpa.

I caught up with Lois one day down at the Willoughby beach after her daily dunk, years after my mom had passed. Lois at 95 was like a dry vine that had been bundled into a ball, arms and legs spindly, jaggy fingers twisted in odd directions by arthritis. She could walk with a cane or with a loved one holding her arm, guiding her ship to dock with a thunk into the nearest chair. On the day I quizzed her, she was bundled in a sweater in the late August cool. She wore fabulous pink Jackie Onassis-style big-framed sunglasses.

“Lois, any advice on how I can be a good grandpa?” I asked.

Lois looked thoughtful for a moment, staring out at the lake and the waves swooshing onto the shore. Then she raised one bony finger and pronounced, “Be there for them.”

I waited for her to continue. I figured her statement was merely a preamble to a longer, more eloquent oration. But no, that was it. And the more I thought about it, the more I knew she was right. If she had spoken for a whole day, or a year, she could not have imparted better advice. Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address was a brief 272 words, yet positively verbose by Lois’ standards. Great ideas are a lot like acorns. All the DNA of the tree is there and highly compact. When planted and nourished, the acorn thrives into a massive multi-branched oak tree.

In the case of what Lois had told me, that tree had sprawling branches that hugged and protected all those she loved most.

Lois lived those words. Even up until the last year of her long life, when any movement at all caused her pain, she’d be there for us and her many grand and great grandchildren in myriad ways. Every year on the 4th of July, Lois was the “boat lady” for our annual celebrations at the beach. Around dusk the wind would die down and leave the lake flat as a mirror, and in its reflection the wild roses of dusk bloomed as the sun slowly set. We’d light the bonfire as the whole family gathered around, talking and laughing, and Lois would sit at the picnic table and teach the bustling kids how to fold newspapers into paper boats.

Just as the sun was leaving the sky and the stars began to peek out, adults helped the kids put a match to their boats and launch them onto the water; the shimmering flames of a dozen ships floated slowly out onto the lake, the kids cheering theirs on; the winner would be the last boat still burning.

In her younger days, Lois would stand on the dock and play taps on her bugle. At 95, she sat in her chair and sang along with us around the bonfire, withered with time but still a young mother inside.

Last year Lois passed away quietly in bed. The night before she died, she excitedly told my cousins that she had a busy day ahead of her. She was going to see Ray (her late husband), her sister, mother and father. There was so much to look forward to.

This summer and for all summers to come, the paper boats will still flame and glitter along the shores of the lake at dusk. There’s some of Lois in every fold of those boats, and in every squeal of excitement as the kids set their boats aflame and watch them float and sputter.

It makes me very happy to know that Lois provided me with the best possible advice, and to realize—through my discussions with dozens of grandparents—that there are as many ways to be there for grandkids as there are leaves in a forest.

In my own grandpa life, I’ve found that being there for them can be a chance to teach lessons that will last a lifetime.

I’ve fine-tuned the art of the pillow fight by applying just the right amount of power to each swing of the pillow; enough to score a definitive cushy punch yet still harmless.

There are also opportunities for learning.  On a recent weekend morning, my grandkids decided to make a lemonade stand and make enough money to help pay for a video game (their elusive Holy Grail). When they brought it up, I said, “Ok, that’s a great idea. But you should also take into account your cost of goods so you can determine how much profit you’ll make per cup of lemonade sold.”

Their reply: “What?”

This led to a robust discussion, complete with a math exercise, that delved into the cost of the lemonade mix and plastic cups, how much they would charge per cup, and how much they’d ultimately make in profit after subtracting their cost of goods. Over the course of a day they raked in a sizable amount of money at a decent profit.

The lemonade stand, staffed by future entrepreneurs.

My son-in-law added a wonderful touch: half the proceeds will be donated to the local fire department.

From my grandkids’ perspective, this was all magic. It felt to them like pulling money out of thin air. Instead of begging their parents to buy them a video game, they showed entrepreneurial spirit and took control of their finances. And they’re not even 10 years old yet.

Being there for the grandkids helps shape them into who they can become in the future, the best version of themselves. They might be making paper boats today, and building real boats in adulthood, or founding a new beverage company. And hopefully giving a percentage of their profits to charity. What a wonderful life lesson for them. And a total blast for us.

When I talk about nurturing the next great generation, this is what I mean. If we can help raise a generation of young people who know how to found and run profitable businesses—and give proceeds to charitable causes—we can change the world.

But let’s not forget the pillow fights. My grandkids are getting bigger by the week and our battles are becoming truly epic. I will show no mercy.

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