There is a lot to be learned from the greatest generation. The people who were born in the early 1900’s are fascinating to me. I can’t imagine the things they have seen or the changes they have lived though. They went from riding horses, to driving cars, to flying airplanes, to flying spaceships. They saw the invention of the telephone and the radio and the television and the cellphone. They lived though the great depression and the world being at war, twice.
I love to hear their stories. I love to examine their lives. And none more so than my grandfather. I loved to sit and listen to him. Or follow him and watch how he lived his life. My grandpa liked to tell stories, but he also taught by doing. He let his life be the lesson.
I think one of the most sad things about the younger generation is that they don’t seem to care very much about learning lessons from the generations that came before them. But the previous generation’s knowledge is a goldmine of wisdom and strength if we would just be willing to learn.
With that in mind, here are five quick lessons I learned from one of my heroes of that generation:
1. How to always speak well of your spouse
My grandpa loved talking about my grandma. He never tired of telling us how great our grandmother was. Even when we grew tired of hearing about how they met or the list of great things he thought about her, he never tired of telling us–or anyone else who would listen–that my grandmother was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.
2. How to treat your family well
My grandpa was a family man. His family was very important to him. The Prather name was important to him. He took pride in his family. When I won my first powerlifting contest he went to the local newspaper and made them put an article about it in the next edition. One of the stories he told with the most pride was about the time he flew with my dad through a thunderstorm and barely felt any turbulence and afterwards my dad’s boss said my father was the best pilot he’d ever flown with.
My grandpa loved his family. He would give anything for them or to them. My grandpa was bald for as long as I can remember so he always wore hats to keep his head from getting sunburned. He could be wearing his very favorite hat, but let one of his grandkids say, “I like that hat, grandpa” and he would take it off and give it to them. And his generosity didn’t stop with his best hat. When it came to his family he would give anything. That’s how he lived life: giving his family his best.
3. How to tell a story
My grandpa was the best story-teller I’ve ever met. He could tell a story he had told me a hundred times and somehow still make it interesting. I listened to his stories for hours. I tried to pick up things like the rhythm of a story and how to emphasize one part or another and the importance of the final line. Any story telling ability found in my soon-to-be published novel can be traced back to him. If I could pick one thing in my life to do over again, it would be to sit and listen to my grandfather tell me one more story.
4. How to be tough
My grandpa hovered somewhere around 5 feet tall. He was almost always the smallest guy on the block as well as the youngest boy of twelve siblings. He was always the guy who got picked on and who had to work hard to establish his place and earn every ounce of respect he got. He won the state championship in basketball with a team called the “Iron Five” because he and his four teammates had no subs. They played all game, every game, injured or otherwise.
My grandpa taught me never to start a fight…but always to finish them. He loved to tell stories about the bullies in the school growing up and how he generally put them all in their place. But one of his favorite stories was about how standing up to a bully and his gang from another town led to them becoming best friends.
5. How to persevere
My grandpa never retired. Well, he retired but then he worked as much or more than before he retired. He still oversaw the farm he spent his life building and he also volunteered where my grandmother worked. He never quit on life, even when he was almost a hundred years old.
My grandpa never lived outside the small town he grew up in, so he made it to every class reunion. In his later years his school passed out a little iron bulldog statue to the oldest surviving member of the class. My grandpa took great pride in winning that bulldog. He was tough. He kept that bulldog a long time.
