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We visited Disney World when I was really little and were spending the morning by the hotel's pool. We had set our stuff up on some seats and were all hanging out in the pool when this other family came by and started moving our stuff. My dad is 5 foot 6 and was about 275 lbs at this time, but he ZOOMED across the pool and shot out of the water like a dolphin in one smooth move, then got to his feet right in front of the guy and asked what the hell he was doing. The dad was so freaked out he started apologizing and we went back to swimming in the pool like nothing happened. A couple of years later we were at the New Jersey boardwalk and a kid almost got run over by a tram car until my Dad ran over there and grabbed the kid. Again, he moved like a man half his age and weight, it was incredible. My mom inherited her mom's house after she passed away and let a bunch of different people live in there for free while they were between jobs rather than be homeless. She never told anyone because she "didn't want to make a big deal" and I only found out when one guy came up to her at the grocery store and started saying how great she was. My mom also used to take us to independent wrestling shows and one time a wrestling dove out of the ring, overshot his opponent, and landed right in my mom's lap, knocking her to the ground. She just stood up and was totally fine, both wrestlers were mortified that they might have injured this little middle-aged woman. I think that we ended up getting some free shirts or something, too. Share any cool stories about your family in this thread.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:37
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| # ? May 3, 2024 06:23 |
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My dad grew up down the street from Col. Sanders. The chicken man sent him $5 for his high school graduation.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:39
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My family defeated your family
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Sep 3, 2021 15:45
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EASTER FOR SQUIRRELS Easter was always a confusing holiday. I stared into the fire pit as it burned my scrambled eggs, listening to my father's voice explaining he had prepared an Easter egg hunt for me in the woods. Depending on how faithful my father was feeling or what part of his personal dogma he was observing at the time, our Easter could take any number of forms. Some years there were Easter baskets, egg dyeing, Easter bunnies, and gifts. One year we went to a Hebrew temple being run out of a flea market. I didn't understand a word of what was said and didn't join in the dances that the other boys did in front of the crowd, but it felt very important. I was told I was watching the services of God's chosen people. Some years our Easter was very boring, as those were the years my father decided that Easter festivities were pagan traditions incorporated into the Christian religion by Satanists. Sure, Jesus was raised from the dead, but eggs and rabbits? Straight from the pits of hell. With all this in mind, I was never quite sure what my Easter was going to look like. The only thing I could count on was that there would always be Easter church. My father would look at the larger than normal crowd attending services and sneer at all these "C&E Christians" - people that only attended on Christmas and Easter. One unfortunate year, my dad decided he and I would go camping for Easter. Now, I've always loved camping and the trip itself was indeed fun. There was even a weird camping version of church, in which a huddled bunch of unshowered, middle-aged men powered through their hangovers to lecture other campers on the thoughts of God. The day itself started with my father shouting to me from outside the tent. It was time for breakfast. The years my father allowed our family to have contemporary Easter accoutrements, the egg hunts were always the best. The guy loved to find the most creative hiding places. He would tell us how many he had hidden, and follow my brother and me around the house while we searched. When our attention spans began to wane he would help out by telling us how "warm" or "cold" we were. With this knowledge, I knew an egg hunt in the woods would be amazing. I jumped at the chance to hunt for eggs in the woods and avoid a burnt scrambled egg breakfast. Little plastic eggs that would pop open and reveal a delicious chocolate treat were much more attractive to me. The only problem was, every one I found was gnawed open. Mutilated by hungry squirrel jaws until the prize within was revealed. Every single one of them. I eventually found them all, empty. I returned defeated to the fire pit and sullenly ate the now cold scrambled (and charred) eggs. My father attempted to lighten the mood and concluded, "Well, I guess the squirrels were hungry." They could have had my eggs.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:53
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My kids did that immaculate conception thing
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Sep 3, 2021 15:55
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My father's family were literally mountain people in the mountains of the Dominican Republic. Its that kind of situation where you lived on the land you owned. They were literally dirt poor and lived off the land, farming was a necessity and the river nearby provided water for drinking and bathing. The land is still in the family, inherited and divided to all the uncles when the old people were too old to tend to the land themselves, but they don't live there anymore. Late 90s my father made enough money to make a house for him and his parents in the town down the mountain and the rest of the family moved with them making their own home. They still live in that town and tend to that land in the mountains raising cows for milk and food and bulls for breeding. Goats too for food but mostly used for keeping the land vegetation in check. Whenever I go for vacation making that hike to see those wooden houses with palm tree roofs still standing is something else. Also the river is an amazing spot to swim and chill for the day.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:05
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My dad was a musician (who just retired from playing music last week) and while he was never famous or super successful himself he did meet and befriend a lot of people who were, so like there are old baby photos of me with gregg allman and stuff like that. Anyway the best story he ever told me is one time in the late 60s he walked into a sandwich shop and tried to order a hoagie, then found out he didn't have enough money to pay for it. So he was sad and about to walk out the door when Jimi Hendrix walked in. And Jimi Hendrix goes up and orders a hoagie and... doesn't have enough change to pay for it. So my dad and Jimi Hendrix split a hoagie and then sat down and played Gin Rummy for 2 hours while eating it
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Sep 3, 2021 17:08
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My dad was a computer/electronics nerd. One day he heard about a high school updating their computers and throwing away lots of computer parts - motherboards, hard drives, ram, cases, monitors, etc. So they were perfectly good parts but just not the latest and greatest. So my dad took them all. His office was filled with all sorts of parts. So what did he do with them? He first built computers out of the parts for my brother and myself (we had to help of course). Then he started making computers for the other families in our neighborhood and gave them away. Eventually I got to help, loading word programs and a few shareware games to make the computer fun. This was the late 1990s and we were in a poor area, so a computer for a family was a big thing. My dad was an rear end in a top hat in a lot of other ways but it was cool to see him give out these potentially life-changing devices.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:20
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My dad used to hang out with Dick Cheney when the latter was CEO of Halliburton. It was oil related. Wait that's not really cool at all.
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Sep 3, 2021 17:23
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before fleeing to south america my uncle sold the same airplane to four different people, including his mom
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Sep 3, 2021 17:26
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There was a bad car accident in front of my dad, very close to home. The woman in the car lost her arm in the crash, nowhere to be found. My dad was first on the scene and called for help. After they evacuated her, dad searched through the nearby field and found her arm. Packed it up in ice and brought it to the hospital, they were able to reattach it successfully with no major complications. My uncles hollowed out an old-style refrigerator in high-school and rafted it down a flooding river for miles lol.
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Sep 3, 2021 18:16
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I have his service flag and a shell from his 21 gun salute, my cousin has his awards and ribbons. My grandfather, known to us as Papa, got three Silver Stars for killing Nazis as a tail-gunner over Europe in WWII. He never talked about his time in the war, and we only found out about them after he passed at 86, leaving Grandma a widow, and she showed us and told his story. e: They were all neatly tucked away, the awards and ribbons in a wood box. My Papa killed Nazis, and that's good. Chief McHeath fucked around with this message at 18:33 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 18:30
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Don't think I got any  I see people who claim to have loving and caring families that they actually enjoy spending time with and I might as well be looking at a martian.
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Sep 3, 2021 19:04
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Colonel Cancer posted:Don't think I got any I have lots of stories about my parents because they were both entirely unaware of the existence of sapient consciousnesses other than their own
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Sep 3, 2021 19:08
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My aunt ran away from home with a dude to San Francisco when she was 14 or 15. It was that era. My mom, her older sister, was tasked with going to San Fran to find her-- she herself was 16 or 17. Their family lived in New Mexico. My gran managed to get in touch with a private investigator in San Fran, and sent my mom, with some money, to rendezvous with him. She did, and together with the PI, found my aunt after about a week. My mom paid the guy, and dragged my aunt back home via a very angry and silent bus ride. They get along quite well today. Oh, also when my parents were dating in college, they had a falling out and my mom decided to drop out and join a convent that was on a mountain nearby. She actually did enter the novitiate, but when my dad found out about it from a mutual friend, he skipped class and drove to the nunnery, telling the porter that we would not leave until he could talk to my mom. They relented, and my dad convinced my mom to go back to college and start dating him again. If he hadn't, I wouldn't be shitposting on this forum.
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Sep 3, 2021 19:43
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My dad is/was an alcoholic. We've been estranged for 8 years because of it. He once borrowed a WiiMote from the neighbors so he, his girlfriend, and I could play. Had fun, ended the evening. He stumbles over to the neighbors house and in a horribly racist Japanese accent, presented the 'Mote, and bowed, said "Wii would like to play" .. then stumbled back over to his house and fell asleep on the porch. Another time, he was stumbling drunk trying to get to the bathroom, and fell and caught himself on a hanging plant. He began to hug it, and say how much he loved it. Until he pulled it out of the ceiling landing on a glass side table, and just laying on the floor for an hour or two. Sometime later, he was arrested for brandishing a firearm. e These aren't really cool. My bad, Op. blight rhino fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Sep 3, 2021 |
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Sep 3, 2021 19:49
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My pa worked on the F-117 program and used to freeze scorpions in the vats of liquid oxygen they had on-site, then toss them on the ground to shatter. He was barely out of his teens, if even, tbf, and they were kind of A Problem getting in the machinery there. His career in the service lasted longer than the planes did. I don't know if that's cool or not.
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Sep 3, 2021 20:01
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In the 70's my dad was a cop in Cleveland (I know I know) He and his partner rescued a dog that fallen onto a ledge overlooking Lake Erie by basically being lowered down on a rope. It was winter and icy and genuinely dangerous. There was even a small newspaper article about it. I always thought that was pretty cool. Now he's a conspiracy-theory guy and we don't talk.
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Sep 3, 2021 21:03
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MillennialVulcan posted:There was a bad car accident in front of my dad, very close to home. The woman in the car lost her arm in the crash, nowhere to be found. My dad was first on the scene and called for help. Your dad is cool. Tell your dad you told this story on the internet and some random guy said he was cool.
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Sep 3, 2021 22:19
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My genetic maternal grandfather was a bit of a bastard. He grew up in Chicago and was a Golden Gloves boxer. Family tradition holds that he was hired by Al Capone's organization as a driver and intimidator. Legend also holds that he was the driver for the Saint Valentine's day Massacre, however we have no evidence for this. He and Grandma moved to Arizona when things got a bit hot back in Illinois. One night granddad got into a fight in a bar and beat a man to death. He went to prison for this. Gramma divorced him while he was behind bars, and remarried a nicer dude. Original granddad finally got out of prison and promptly disappeared. Nobody knew what happened to him until a set of skeletal remains were found in the remote desert about a decade later. They were positively identified as his. They found a .38 bullet wound to the skull, the bullet still inside the head. Mystery solved!
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Sep 3, 2021 22:47
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My dad helped build the original Space Mountain in Disneyland. He was a construction plumber and ran some sort of piping through the whole thing so that if a track broke in the dark they could tell because it would cause the air pressure in the pipes to drop. He got to ride Space Mountain before it was open to the public and he said it was set to go way too fast and was quite a painful ride before they chilled it out some. My mom was super religious but also not preachy about it. She was going to be a nun before she met my dad.
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Sep 3, 2021 22:58
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Genesplicer posted:Crazy granddaddy story Oh, poo poo, that reminds me of my maternal grandfather! I never knew him, bc he just disappeared when my aunts and uncles were kids- only my uncle really had memories of him. Turns out he very likely had to enter witness protection for some crime poo poo and died down in Florida, having left his two entire families as well! He, however, got to die of old age, full of regrets for his actions. That's ok, because I got two grandpappies for the price of one- the next one decided to divorce after the nest was empty, but loved his family (he adopted all the kids) and was always in our lives, and the man grandma married next also treated us as his own. I loved them both dearly, as did all the grandchildren, and if there was friction it was behind closed doors. I mean, my one grandfather actually built them a nice little digital clock (he loved to tinker with electronics) as a wedding gift, giving them his full blessings. They set a good example and got along right up until they loving up and died on the same damned day.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:18
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I'm related to Gene Tunney who beat Jack Dempsey. My paternal grandmother blinded a purse snatcher. She also broke a woman's arm in a garbage chute for throwing her laundry on the floor. She beat a woman who slammed a door on her mother's fingers, got bit by that woman's dog, went to the hospital, saw the same woman and flipped over the gurney/bed that the woman was strapped to. The same night, my grandfather punched a North Bergen policeman in the face, got arrested and then punched the same cop at the station. Same grandfather was sunk 3 times in ww2 but his only medals are from Russia because America hates the merchant marine. My mom was the only non-post-doc on a team that discovered a lot of important poo poo about messenger RNA. My family hauled the steel for the George Washington Bridge, Lincoln Tunnel and World Trade Center. My dad issued the largest OSHA fine on record at the time for a business in Long Island that had locked fire exits during a fire that killed two young men. Same dad was at both the 93 bombing of the WTC and spent 6 months in the pit during 9/11. My mom worked at the Max Planck when women were not allowed to wear pants, they had to wear dresses. My son is named after an Irish ancestor who was sentenced to death for rebellion, had his sentence commuted to service in the English army, earned his freedom, married a "lady" in London, stole her money and went back to Ireland to do more rebellion then got sentenced to life in exile in Australia. I knocked over cue cards at a live taping of Conan O'Brien and am thoroughly unaccomplished. Oh also we had some cousin a hundred years ago that was mayor of NYC and he absconded to Mexico with a bunch of stolen money and his secretary.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:44
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ninjoatse.cx posted:Your dad is cool. Tell your dad you told this story on the internet and some random guy said he was cool. Thank you, I will.
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Sep 4, 2021 17:48
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There is speculation that my great great grandfather was a cop who fled Palermo for reasons related to the mafia, but it is entirely speculation because that side of the family was insanely stoic and rarely talked about anything remotely interesting. My grandfather's family used to have a farm across the street from my grandmother's family's farm. I'm guessing that's how they met. At some point there was a huge feud between the two families and the families never spoke to each other again, except for my grandparents who were married. The feud was rarely talked about, and none of our surviving family knows what it was about. At some point my grandparents took in a pregnant teenager and let her and the baby stay with them for a while. That's all I know about it, and I only found out about this at my grandparents' funeral from a friend of the family. I'm guessing it was never mentioned before because teenage pregnancy used to be a really taboo subject, but it's also possible that someone in my family knocked up a teenager and they were hushing it up. No, that teenager was not my mother, although it would make the story better.
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Sep 4, 2021 20:40
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Dad married the dog and their wedding was draaamaaaaaaa
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Sep 4, 2021 20:43
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