Who did you want to be like?

So, are you strong and kind?

I wanted to be like my grampa. He was always so funny and even though he annoyed the **** out of most of the family, they all still felt the love that shined from him. That's who I always wanted to be. Alas, to be annoying in an endearing way, you have to have people around you who have at least some brain power so that they "get" you. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law, the f*cking self-obsessed domineering know-it-all hateful bitch, has ruined all that for me. It's a thin line from charming jokester to uncle weirdo. I hate that bitch so much.

But I digress.

Hmm, two people who come to mind are kind of opposite ends of the same spectrum. My aunt M was a brilliant, gorgeous, globe-trotting, famous award-winner in her field. She knew and captivated all kinds of intellectuals and luminaries of her time. Her home, in San Francisco, was a riot of color, art, animals, and the bustling social lives of her four daughters (my cousins). She was always late, always in a rush, always chain-smoking, and always surrounded by beauty of one kind or another. She was interested in me, focused on me when we were together in a way that was deeply flattering and energizing. (This was a person who was a close personal friend of Isaac Bashevis Singer, to name one, and here she was hanging on MY every word...!)

The other is the mom of one of my best friends growing up. I spent an inordinate amount of time at their house. (One of those things that, looking back, I'm embarrassed at what had to have been intrusiveness -- I ate at their house far, far more than my friend ate at mine. But I didn't feel any of that as a kid.) P was a stay-at-home mom, super-organized, endlessly cool -- she could bake cookies in the morning and then smoke everyone in a skating race in the afternoon (she'd been a champion speed skater). If it takes a village to raise a child, she had a lot to do with raising me, and I learned a ton from her.

I know you dismiss my wanting to be audrey hepburn for five minutes, and that is your lack of perspicacity.

However, five minutes later as well as before, I was off on other routes.

James Madison, James Monroe (some books in fourth grade...)
Sister Mel, who took the class out on spring mornings to play baseball, in St. Nicholas grade school schoolyard.
Well, I guess I never wanted to be exactly her. Still, she was a sort of model.

My dad, I always got him and his interests and his depression and end of life as well.
Harder to tune to my mother, who I was quite naturally aligned against for my own later sanity, and years later I see I should have paid more attention.

As to an actual model - when I wanted to go to med school while I was working batches of hours after school and on weekends and had a mostly romantic view of medschool? I had no models. Women didn't get in, usually, pre 1965, and me either.

On models for the rest of life, I was confused. I know this is like an outer space sentence for most here, but I didn't think, because of my schooling, that a woman could have a career and also be married. Oh, don't get me started... took me a while to wake up.

When I remember some models, I'll post.

I'm on the same wavelength as gus on this one; many people had an influence on me, but the person that I wanted to become never happened. I just turned out to be a person with a hard life during my youth, but everything turned out much better than a dream in my adult life. I barely graduated from high school, but managed to get a college degree after serving in the US Air Force for four years in the late fifties. Ended up marrying a smart woman (graduated high school, nursing school, and college with honors). I worked in management during most of my professional career, and enjoyed my jobs in commercial enterprise and nonprofits before retiring early in 1998. We're not rich, but financially secure, and I'm now enjoying my hobby of world travel and photography. I have friends all over the world, and many across the US. I've just been a lucky guy, and blessed.

When I was a little girl I had a neighbor who was an old man. He had been a merchant marine, and had traveled, especially around war time. He would have us kids from the neighborhood go around and collect things other people did not want. For this he would give us payola (change), and he always had his frig. full of cookies, melons, and yoohoo. The kids in the neighborhood were always welcome to come by after school, and take anything from the frig. I always stayed and kept him company.

Mr. Santos lived alone in a four bedroom railroad apartment, and it was full of boxes. The boxes had clothes, shoes, and kitchen stuff. These boxes he would mail across the sea to orphanages, and churches. He did this with his own money.

My favorite time with mr. Santos was when we sat at the kitchen table after dinner, and he would tell me stories of what he had seen in war time. Children taking care of children, living anywhere they could find, and felt safe. I would read the letters he received from Mon señor so and so or Mother superior so and so thanking him for the things he sent them, and the money he sent them too.

Mr Santos taught me many things: How to make Jewish penicillin ( special chicken soup), the love of classical music, and most important the hands on involvement we each can have in helping our fellow man. I will never forget him, and I try to honor his memory by trying to imitate him.

I love that funny looking little old man, and I will never forget him.

Who would I like to be like? Nobody.
JLNobody

Sturgis wrote:

I have to admit that there was no one particular person I strove to be like. Sure there were bits and pieces of several different folks who made an impact on me and who I wanted to be like in some way. That's about where it ended and soon life took me on my own route which since these people had been part of my existence; incorporated their ideas and ways.

In order it would be as follows:
1)dear old Grampa, a sweet man who was something of a protector of me.
2)My 6th grade teacher...first person to get me to understand the value of studying.
3)my electronics teacher from high school (he had the dubious honor of telling me how my father had died).
4)A Boy Scout Troop leader...he was killed this past Spring by a reckless driver and I can still hear his voice and advice.
5)The minister of a local church, he helped me get through some rough patchs after my father's death (I was only in my teens).


I am sure there are others but these are the ones who hit into my mind first.

Wow! Are bits and pieces of you like them?

AngeliqueEast wrote:

When I was a little girl I had a neighbor who was an old man. He had been a merchant marine, and had traveled, especially around war time. He would have us kids from the neighborhood go around and collect things other people did not want. For this he would give us payola (change), and he always had his frig. full of cookies, melons, and yoohoo. The kids in the neighborhood were always welcome to come by after school, and take anything from the frig. I always stayed and kept him company.

Mr. Santos lived alone in a four bedroom railroad apartment, and it was full of boxes. The boxes had clothes, shoes, and kitchen stuff. These boxes he would mail across the sea to orphanages, and churches. He did this with his own money.

My favorite time with mr. Santos was when we sat at the kitchen table after dinner, and he would tell me stories of what he had seen in war time. Children taking care of children, living anywhere they could find, and felt safe. I would read the letters he received from Mon señor so and so or Mother superior so and so thanking him for the things he sent them, and the money he sent them too.

Mr Santos taught me many things: How to make Jewish penicillin ( special chicken soup), the love of classical music, and most important the hands on involvement we each can have in helping our fellow man. I will never forget him, and I try to honor his memory by trying to imitate him.

I love that funny looking little old man, and I will never forget him.

Hmmm, an important person in YOUR "village".

kickycan wrote:

I wanted to be like my grampa. He was always so funny and even though he annoyed the **** out of most of the family, they all still felt the love that shined from him. That's who I always wanted to be. Alas, to be annoying in an endearing way, you have to have people around you who have at least some brain power so that they "get" you. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law, the f*cking self-obsessed domineering know-it-all hateful bitch, has ruined all that for me. It's a thin line from charming jokester to uncle weirdo. I hate that bitch so much.

But I digress.

Goodness, Kicky, you didn't oughter hold it in like that!!! Let it out, man, let it out...




Still a nasty sore in yer heart, eh? No signs of her going away?


Are you like your grandpa to people other than your family, though, do you think?


Like, er, maybe US?