Thread: My grandfather
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Luca
ಠ_ರೃ
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Minnesota
 
2006-02-03, 13:23

Actually we didn't sing along with the railroad song. When the pianast started playing, everyone there kind of laughed as they realized what was being played. There was quite a bit of laughter the whole time. My mom, my uncle, and my aunt each delivered a short speech, but it's hard to call such speeches "eulogies" since they were so cheerful. My mother's speech especially got to everyone, as she mentioned a few of my grandfather's funny habits. The one that really got a reaction from the crowd was her story about how George would make "kamikaze phone calls" with absolutely no greeting or sendoff. As soon as she mentioned these, everyone laughed because everyone had talked to George on the phone at least once, and that's how he always did phone calls.

He was definitely a cool guy, and a great man. Apparently he was a very strict father, but he got really soft as he got older. Probably the saddest thing about his death is that my grandmother's marriage to him is over - they were the cutest, most loving couple I have ever seen. They met each other at a dance and got married just six months later. They danced often and were married for over fifty years. They even overcame a major religious gap, as my grandfather's family was not too happy about him marrying a non-Jewish girl.

One pretty cool thing he did was restore an old Minneapolis streetcar. It took eight years, but it went from this...



To this...



It was just a volunteer project he led. Pretty nice work! He also made a model version of the train, which he ran on his layout. Sadly, the layout had to be dismantled when they sold their house, but the models are still intact. They're all handmade and beautiful.
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