Crazy family stories - past and present

[Victory Sabre]

Only thing that comes to mind is the night my little brother came home with a fish hook embedded in his foot. It wasn't just any fish hook either; it was a large, three-pronged hook for ocean fishing, something like this one:



Yeah. Ow.

I didn't have any cutter that was strong enough to snip off the barbed end and still get in between the barb and the hook's central shaft.

I finally found a pair of lineman's pliers that fit just right, letting the central shaft pass through the pliers while the cutting blades could be applied to the barb. My brother was rather relieved.

I was ice fishing one early morning in my friend's fish house, and a fish came on the rattle reel. I went over to it and as soon as I bent over to pull the line, I felt a SHARP pain in my back. I got the gaff stuck in my back, and it is a bigger version of that hook pictured, used for pulling in big fish. It hut like hell to get it out.

[JustaCashier]

Grandmother said "That SOB,I'll never vote for him & if he wins he'll do something illegal,he's a goddam crook,you watch"

The politician was Richard Nixon.

So that's what he was referring to with his famous line; "I am not a crook!"



My Dad was an SC.

If something at a restaurant, or such, wasn't to his liking, he wouldn't simply say something like; "Hey, this is a little [whatever], could you fix it/get me another?" No, he'd angrily bitch about it from the get go.

One time, back around 1968-ish, my Dad, then 12-ish year old Brother, and 9-ish year old self, went to this little walk-up Fish-n-Chips stand at the base of the Ferry Terminal in downtown Seattle.

We order or breaded, greasy, goodness from the young, probably late teens early twenties guy running the whole show, and several minutes later, our number is called, and we go back to the window to pick up our food.

Dad looks at his, and proclaims (or more accurately EXclaims:"This is burnt!"
"Kid" replies:"Well, I couldn't care less!
Dad replies to that: "Well, I'll bet you'd care if I shoved it up your ASS!" grabbed a handful of napkins, and we went off to sit down and eat our burnt Fish-n-Chips!

Mike

[AccountingDrone]

mrAru's grandfather was a high scaler for the WPA dam projects. Irascible codger he was, he adamantly never called it anything except Boulder Dam, as "Hoover didn't have a goddamned thing to do with it". The scalers had a habit of sitting in the bosun's chairs halfway down the cliff for lunch. The drivers of the trucks would drop pebbles off the rim, to see if they could bounce them off the scalers hard hats. The scalers kept complaining and asking them to stop. They finally got fed up and dropped a 1 ton boulder into the back of one drivers truck on his way down to get a load. [High scalers were the men who slid down ropes to the bottom of the cut that was being blasted, set the explosives, and climbed back up before they went boom. Took great skill with explosives and great skill at climbing *fast*'].

When he was working on Shasta dam as a contracter providing wiring to the dam[he got canney and got a contract as a supplier, which was much safer than high scaling], there was a bit of an altercation between the electricians and the carpenters. The electricians would string the temporary lings, and the carpenters would come along behind them, and instead of them getting an electrician to come back and move the line. So they would just take a hatchet and cut the temporary lines. SO the electricians would then have to go and splice the lines back together. The electricians got tired of this so the chief electrician told the carpenters that the voltage was going to be increased so they shouldn't cut the lines any more. He changed the lines to low amperage 1660 and gave the next carpenter to cut a line one hell of a dance and vaporized the head of the hatchet. Problem solved, they changed the line back. The Colorado School of Mines offered him a job teaching, but they had to withdraw it because they discovered he didn't finish high school. At the time he was one of the top people in the country in his field simply from on the job experience. He held several patents on a number of different drillbits he had invented.

Also, his mothers mother could not make donuts that were light to save her life. They were about as dense as a rock. When her father wanted one of her uncles to pass the donut, Uncle Dick did indeed pass the donut by tossing it, unfortunately her father missed the catch and got knocked for a loop. The family was also prone to pranks, and at least once the contents of the sugar bowl and the salt cellar were swapped.

My dad got a medal for saving his own ass ... he was just diving for a trench when a german machine gun opened up. It was the benefit of several officers he essentially tackled in his effort to get in. Though he did get a major award for Remagen. He never did like talking about most of his experiences - I found out about them after he died. His funniest story was when they were being sent out on a foraging for food expedition locally because he happened to speak enough german to be understood and not be insulting. He always managed to trade for the good stuff, *whole hams*, fresh eggs, sausages, fresh milk, *butter*. Every trip out and back he would get little clumps of german soldiers surrendering to him because word got around that firstly he spoke german, and he was *friendly* to germans. His average haul was 7 or 8 men but once he brought back 48 germans including their officers. [I still have the officer's P.08 that dad 'looted']

My mom and dad were on vacation in the Gaspe, neither of them speak french. He was AWOL because they never got the message that dad needed to get back to his unit when Korea started. Luckily it was just a general recall, they were not being shipped out. They knew something seemed to be happening, but they didn't know what.

[SengaKitty]

My great grandmother was a nurse back in the days when nurses wore white head to toe and would say things like "Doctor will see you now," or "Please wait, Doctor is in a meeting." Nan only got sent home from work twice in her life without pay. One time was when she bought a new pair of saddle shoes and wore them to work. She refused to change her shoes (if you remember saddle shoes, they were black and white) because they were perfectly good. The other time, was when a doctor pinched her boob and she smacked him upside the head with one of those old wooden charts

[Eireann]

My great-grandfather took care of his entire family when they came down with the Spanish flu. He didn't have much to work with - my grandfather told me that he fed them "biscuits and jerky, and some castor oil to keep 'em from bindin' up." (Lovely diet when you're deathly ill, eh?)

The thing is, every one of them survived. At a time when people were dying by the thousands, and my great-grandfather had no medical training whatsoever, and only a little boy from the nearby reservation to help him. After everyone recovered, he himself fell ill, and they took care of him and pulled him through.

[Peppergirl]

Try as I might, my google fu failed me when I attempted to find said picture.

I think my dad still has a copy. I'll have to ask him for the title so that we all can be amused.

[DeltaSierra]

A story about my maternal Grandfather and his buddies. I have an actual newspaper clipping with the entire story, but its back home (I'm in college) so I'll paraphrase the best I can.

Grandpa and his buddies were in their early 20's when they read a story in the newspaper about a rich American who hired a bunch of guides and spent $10,000 (this was back in the mid 1930's, so that's a LOT of money) to take him hunting in the Wilds of British Columbia so he could shoot a moose. He gets brand new shotguns, tents, vehicles, trackers to come with him, etc and after a week in the bush, returns defeated, with no moose.

Grandpa and his buddies think "Well we'll show them dang Yankees how its REALY done" and between the three of them cobble together something like $30 and take Grandpa's Model T ford out to the Interior and within 2 days bag themselves a moose. They brought it home with them too, but that was quite an ordeal as the Model T's brakes didn't work, so they devised a "tree break" dragging a tree behind them down the hills so that they could stay on the road.

When I go back home in March (Spring Break) I'll try to find the original newspaper article and scan it.

[Mytical]

My goodness where do I begin? I have some fratchworthy, some endearing, some , some funny, etc...my family (extended) is a walking soap opera comedy. Most of the ones I remember I was involved in, though.

Me and my cousins had a sleep over. It was one of dozens we had while I was growing up, the eldest cousin was more like a brother to me then some of my brothers were. Anyhow, I was in one of my mischievous moods, and started talking about multiple personalities (remember I was a kid ). I convinced them I had multiple personalities..well with the help of the oldest of them .

"Bad John" (no clue what his real name was tbh). BJ was cousin of mine that sold moonshine, and had a history of trouble. He ended up shooting somebody, got tracked down by the law..and got shot (supposedly) a dozen times before he went down. The interesting part was, as he was dying (yes that is right, he lived awhile after getting shot those dozen times), he claimed that his feet were on fire..because he knew he had done such bad things that he was 'going to hades (only the other word for this)'. Of course that could be because he used his own product, and was a bit crazy...

UFO madness..no not ufo sightings. One of my fondest memories of my late brother was a time me, him, and my sister sat out on my sisters pourch till the wee hours of the morning. My brother was 'on' that day, the funniest things I've ever heard..jokes about Ufo's and aliens. I don't believe I have ever laughed that hard before or since.

Rain dance. My dad, before he started deteriorating into his paranoia, used to love to have us kids do rain dances. Not because he expected them to work (though yes..for some reason they did..every time), but because it was good family fun. We were painting a car, and he saw that we were bored..so we did the normal rain dance thing. Sure enough it started to rain, but we stood out there painting (yes, it was doing nothing, the water was washing it off faster then we could put it on)..just having a grand old time. The car ended up a horrid brown/yellow color, but we didn't care.

All night. My sister, I love her to death. She was always looking out for me, sometimes more of a mother then a sister..but I digress. One night, I was allowed to watch Halloween, because I was home sick with the chickenpox. Of course, I wasn't ready, so I had nightmares and couldn't sleep. I ended up sitting on the stairs all night, scared out of my wits. Even though she had school the next day, she stayed up all night with me. She ended up giving me her favorite teddy bear, with a pink nose. *sighs*. Now, we are lucky to say two words to each other.

There are plenty more for later...

[blas]

My great-great grandpa was buddies with Al Capone and helped build his famous hideout in Lac Courtes Oreilles.

Yeah, that's pretty vague, but that's all we know. He took it all to the grave.

[csquared]

It has been reported the The Wife's Grandfather knew the Capone family. When he was short on money, he may or may not have run a few errands for the family. But they don't talk about that. I wonder if he knew Blas's great-great grandfather?

My great-great grandfather was declared a heretic by the Catholic Church and had his books burned. Probably one of the reasons two of his sons left Italy.

For my grandparents 50Th wedding anniversary, we had a big family reunion. Mom and Aunt rounded up all the old documents. They found that the marriage certificate was signed by the County Clerk, but not by a Justice. It turns out the my grandparents has a Common Law marriage. They filled out the licenses. After living together for 7 years, they would be declared married. That meant that this was actually their 43 anniversary. My Mon was 48, and my Aunt was 46, so...

But wait, there is more.
Grandfather had a previous wife. It was a shotgun wedding. However, after the ceremony, it was discovered that the shotgun was not loaded. My grandfather dropped his wife off at her parents' house, and never saw her again.

While looking though papers, Mom never found divorce or annulment papers. So Grandpa may have never legally married Grandma. Explains the Common Law marriage.

On top of all that, Grandma was good friends with Grandpa's first wife's mother. Grandma would take Mom and Aunt over to first wife's mother's house to visit.

[Mytical]

My father and mother worked (according to them) for mobsters at one time. Not sure who, they are not saying. They claim they worked as a maid and a butler .

[Seshat]

Geez.

And the saying is that AUSTRALIA is the one 'entirely peopled by criminals'.

Though I probably have criminals in my family tree. We just don't associate with that branch at all, so I don't have any stories to share. I'm sorry.

[Plaidman]

Hm. I think I got a few, though none are as good as the others here.

When I was a child, like six, I did something to piss my mom off and she was screaming at me. I took it in stride, turned around with my arms held in front of me like a robot and said "MUST....WARN....OTHERS....".

Made her laugh so much she stop being angry at me.


Growing up, I could do some major tantrums. It got to the point I could drop to the ground in a milisecond in a ball. It was titled the Driver Drop because it defied senses how fast I could drop. Naturally people did what they could to annoy or hurt me to get me to do the drop for amusment.

When my father was doing everything he could to get me into any kind of sport, he settled on golf because I liked hitting stuff with sticks. He even made me a little tiny golf course in the backyard. On my first swing, he felt it be safest to be far behind me to avoid the golf club if I let it lose on the swing forward, which I didn't do. I did however lose it on the swing back and broke his nose.

Something the whole family knows is how I got my name. When I was born, I was going to be named Billy after my birth father. However, my cousin Billy who was like, four if that at the time got jealous, and told the family in the hospital that we were just going to call me the Driver. It stuck, and to this day the entire family refers to me that. They are also the only ones NOT to make fun of it, unlike schoolchildren, so I gotta give them that much respect.

My uncle Bill (Father of Billy above) was a genuis until he got heavy addicted to meth. He is also super strong, due to him growing up aways carrying a gas canister that was filled with something (The lid was stuck and nothing could get it open) around everywhere. In anycase, being a drug user that tends to hate the police, he got in many fights with them. I remember I use to keep a running tab on how many times he's been to jail/prison. But it was known that if he was arrested, it wasn't quiet. (He's been in the news a few times years ago for high speed chases). Point is, I remember once when we were going to pick him up, we came when he was fighting off police. There was seven police officers fighting him, and he wasn't losing. (Though this was like, 20 years ago). That image always stuck in my head, which is the main reason I think that it's highly possible to fight off large amounts of people at once.

My grandpa beat the shit out of his son, my uncle once. Uncle stopped abusing his kids then. That's still be talked about at times.

This one is a bit more involved, but it was a rare time I got revenge on someone so it was worth it.
I once lived in an apartment complex that was hell to me. I made the most enemies there, and it still a huge black spot on my past. I was stupid once, and showed off my twenty dollar bill and lottery scratch it to some of the few kids there that were nice to me. They knew where it was. They then brought over one of the /cool/ kids in the apartment complex, and I was dumb enough to belive him when he said he wanted to hang with me. While over at my house, they managed to get me out of my own room by asking for a soda. They left shortly afterwards, and I overheard my /friend/ telling the cool kid "Alright we got it!". I didn't get what they meant at the time. Later that night I decided to play my lotto ticket with my dad when he got home. Money and lotto were gone naturally. Angry I ran to the apartment clubhouse that the kids have worked on over the years thinking it was late so they're be there smoking. They weren't there but I did find a big bag of candy that had a recipt from that day, with a time that was roughly thirty minutes after they left my apartment that day with twenty bucks of candy. I took it. It was mine in my head. The next day, I was hanging with my /friends/ still acting like I didn't know it was missing. They were angry because their /candy/ was stolen from the club. I idly remarked that other kids that lived in another apartment that hated me, but were /ok/ with the others and so far not involved came home last night and had a big bag of candy. My /friends/ got angry, because their family car was parked near the club. So that started a big fight with those two. Two less enemies for me to deal with as much. Later on I managed to steal a few cigs, and a tiny bit of weed that they didn't noticed missing thankfully. I offered it to the /cool/ kid who was then /nice/ enough to talk with me for a bit out of gratitude. The subject of sex came up and he was bragging about all the blowjobs he got from the apartment managers daughter who was 17. (He was 13). A few days later when I was going to the store with my mom, we happened to go by the apartment manager and her daughter, and I asked loudy to my mom "Shane says he gets blowjobs from Susan, what's a blowjob!?".

Mom turned red. Apartment manager and daughter went red. Cool kid's family moved out a month later. Don't know if it was because of me or not, nor do I care. Cool kid was a major leader and could easily control others. The power heirechy broke down momentory as the kids all tried to become dominate, until a new older kid moved in, that knew karate. Naturally he became the /cool/ kid, which had a new shitstorm war that happened against me. I'm glad I got out.

[Cat]

My family is so dull... Though my grandmother claims we are somehow related to Edwin Hubble and were invited to see the telescope get launched, ha.

Should track down my birth fam and if I'm blood related to anyone news worthy, lol

[AdminAssistant]

I might have posted this before, but:

Dad's best friend in high school, D, was the class clown. One day, D and some friends decided to set off a cherry bomb in a mailbox. Dad was invited to go, but he had to run an errand (lucky him.) So, D sneaks into the chemistry lab, pours some chemicals in a test tube, and they all get in the car. D's holding the test tube between his thumb and forefinger, and he starts to shake it.

*BOOM*

D loses one eye, most of two fingers and his thumb, and his hearing in one ear. Everyone in the car suffered some hearing loss and burns, and I believe the guy sitting next to him also had some other injuries. The explosion busted all of the windows out of the car, of course. They wound up not getting into trouble - the principal figured that the explosion was punishment enough.

Although, I swear D just likes to piss off Death. He's wrecked multiple cars, a boat, a motorcycle, and g-d airplane. In the past 10 years, he's had lymphoma *twice* and beat it each time. He credits that to the fact that he's lucky enough to live in Houston, a stone's throw from MD Anderson. If he'd gone anywhere else, he says, he might not have made it.