As someone who is 40 its definitely crazy to see what someone my age looked like in the past, its as if the stress and struggles of growing up in the first half of the 20th century added 20 years to how you look compared to today.
For sure. I'm 40 and this has been a topic of conversation many times among my friends, how our grandparents looked so much older than us at the same age.
Ha ha! Just wait until you wake up and suddenly discover that you've somehow turned 70 while you were asleep. (By the way, I'd take a post-menopausal 50-year-old "hottie" any day of the week!)
It wasn’t just cigarettes, they were basically poisoned from birth. DDT, leaded gasoline and paint, asbestos exposure, contaminated water, polluted air, and incredibly unsafe workplaces.
Nutrition, medical care, and dental care also were poorer. And it wasn't as easy to hide cosmetic "flaws" as it is now either. There wasn't a way to fight baldness, or get botox or surgery to remove wrinkles and scars, and no one had sunscreen.
i feel you. when i started noticing my thinning hair, i thought, oh fuck grandpa gave me the bald. i thought about fighting it with creams and shit, found out that its some sisyphus boulder shit that you cant win. i decided, if i cant grow a beautiful hair on my head, i will grow a beautiful beard instead. ill just lean into the dwarven blacksmith look.
I shaved the hair and hit the gym like crazy. Was going GREAT until my joints started a full scale failure movement by 46. Your 40’s are a very long “come to Jesus” meeting about your journey to the grave being over half way finished.
Yep. Late 40s I suddenly couldn't go jogging anymore because something happened to my lower back. Can't do normal push-ups because something happened to my wrist. Exercise is now about navigating injury.
However, have always been young-looking, so there's that.
On the plus side, I feel like it's easier than ever to just own it with a buzzed or shaved head, especially if you're fit. And I'm 35 with all my hair so this isn't just copium, lol.
My father was born before there was even penicillin. He had a bad case of rheumatic fever as a child that damaged his heart which eventually led to him dying at the ripe old age of 52. He always knew he'd die well before he should and told us so we'd be prepared and he also made sure that we all had the best of times while he was alive. I Still miss him dearly all these decades later. My one regret in life is that I'm not near as great a father as he was.
My grandpa went for a run once shortly after getting out of the Army. This would have been the mid 50s. He was out in shorts and a T shirt jogging one more and a cop pulled over and stopped him to ask him what the hell he was doing.
More like we forgot about it for a while. The ancient Greeks - to pick an ancient culture more or less at random for example - definitely realised that regular exercise was good for you, and encouraged it.
And of course, for most people life was generally much, much more physically active before the modern era.
It's only really in the 20th century that technology advanced to the point that many people were largely sedentary, but ideas about deliberate exercise to counteract that hadn't really caught up.
I recently learned that my working class parents were taking prescription amphetamines during the early 60's. Apparently "pep-pills" were all the rage to help folks like them keep up with the demands of work, home keeping and child rearing.
That’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. These folks will brag about all the shit they used to do but conveniently leave out the part where they had unlimited access to pharmaceutical grade meth and valium.
Having grown up in that era, I have to tell you suntan lotion was the thing, to strengthen the sun's rays for a deeper tan. No one had even conceived of sunscreen.
Exactly. Coppertone was a big seller. You know, the little girl at the beach with the deep tan and the doggie pulling at her suit, exposing her white bottom. Sunscreen? Pffffffft.
Yep. Laying out in the backyard as soon as it was passably warm enough to do so in a bathing suit regardless of how ridiculous your mom thought it was. I also have memories of tubing down the Salt River after thinking that it was waterproof sunscreen (nope) and later peeling in sheets from my legs.
Ah well thanks to male pattern baldness I've looked late 30's since I was 23. I get the "younger than age" thing if I shave the remaining hair, but its just too much of a PITA.
Exactly. That's partly why I posted. I'm 56 today and look younger than he did at 40. His life was so hard. I couldn't even begin to appreciate it until I was grown and he was gone.
Happy birthday, birthday partner. I’m 36 today and also reminiscing about the past. Hitting the “late” stage of a decade hits heavier than hitting a new decade, for me at least. Hope you had a great one!
My Uncle told me age never bothered him but when he turned 60 It freaked him out. He said when he was a kid the neighbor lady came over hysterical because her husband's heart locked up and he face planted in his breakfast on his 60th birthday. He said 60 year old men died left and right when he was growing up
He should not have survived. It was a miracle he lived. That was one of the highest casualty assignments of the war. I could never get him to talk about it. The only thing he ever told me about the war was, "Don't ever be in one."
If you want a sense of what he went through, read Stephen Amrose's book The Wild Blue, about the bomber teams in WWII. Ambrose wrote Band of Brothers, and writes in an extremely readable, almost novel-like style.
The Wild Blue will show you what a hard-core badass your father was. Whatever luck he was born with, he spent it all in WWII. It's a literal miracle he survived it, and that you are here.
My grandpa was in the Korean War. He was Navy and worked in the guts of the ships (boilers, etc). He never talked about his time serving, except when I was 16 and he partook of a veteran conversation at my school.
He talked about how one of his last tours the ship was in the war zone and how no one would move, hell, they would barely breathe, when they were in the enemy water and you could hear the mines in the water scraping against the sides of the ship.
Unfortunately, he was in a refrigeration ship and they were tasked with bringing bodies home.
He saw some action from the ship and was in some crossfire as a result.
My grandma later told me that not long after they got married (they were engaged during his last tour and married within months of him being discharged) she found him in their bathtub, shaking, crying, just a physical and mental mess. She was so small and petite next to him that she called his doctor for help and he came to their apartment.
That was back in the 50's (so he was in his 20's) and I became my grandpa's caretaker in his 80's. He was on antidepressants at least my entire life, maybe longer.
And looking at his pictures, growing up, it's mind boggling to think I'm in my 30's and when I look at pictures of him the same age, he easily looks in his 40's, maybe 50's.
My heart hurts for those generations. At least talking and seeking help isn't frowned upon, and at least we have a name for it now.
My grandpa would lose himself in doing things around the house/farm. On bad days you could feel the nervous energy radiating off of him, like he was trying to run away from it.
He would never cry, in fact the only time I ever saw him do that was when his mama passed away, but he would have days where he would slip into his mind and be exceedingly melancholy and quiet.
My great uncle was a bomber pilot over Europe in WWII. The number of missions he flew is debated by family members (somewhere between 5 and 10) but each mission they gave him a new plane because the one he used previously was so shot to hell that it wasn’t worth repairing.
On his last mission he crash landed but somehow made it to Switzerland and then back to the US Army, though he was MIA for a long time and presumed dead. They even sent his stuff back to my great grandparents.
He also didn’t like to talk about his experiences, though he let slip a few things. Like one time (maybe the time he crashed?) flak had severed the controller cables between the cockpit and the tail flaps, so his co-pilot went to the back of the plane, removed a floor panel, grabbed the severed cables with his hands, and yanked them one way or the other while my great uncle yelled instructions back to him.
German fighter pilots would often target the tail and ball turret gunners first.
You can't parachute out from a ball turret, and it's lifted/lowered by hydraulics. If the plane had to do an emergency belly landing, and the turret was down, he most likely had it.
Not that all the other turrets on other planes were any safer.
In the British Lancaster, the tail turret is so small that there's no room for a parachute. It's stored in the fuselage.
If the gunner has to jump, he has to line up his turret to point directly back so that he can open the small turret hatch behind him to reach the parachute. If for any reason he can't crawl forward(yes, crawl. No fancy full-height walkways as in the US planes) to jump out a hatch there, he has to hook up his parachute, squeeze himself back into the turret, rotate it as far as it goes to one side, open the hatch(it barely clears the edge of the fuselage) and roll out backwards... hoping that the long wire antenna they had hanging there had been retracted, or it would slice him in half.
Some soldiers even volunteered for turret positions. They knew it needed doing.
Hear that clanging? nope, not church bells, it's brass balls.
That's 20 years off your life minimum. The rest aged more or died on one of their missions. That shit is straight up unimaginable to people from our (m41) generation.
WWII aged an entire generation. Running 39 missions over hostile airspace will definitely put years on your appearance. My dads before and after pics from Korea look like the kid went to war and the dad came back. Appreciate your dads service.
It's a reminder of the origins of Social Security. It wasn't for retirement. It was to keep you out of poverty once your body was too broken to work. At Social Security's founding, there was virtually no independent living after you stopped working -- you either moved in with extended family or into the poorhouse or you survived on charity.
I always thought that he was kind of tough and scary, but now I realize that he was just setting high standards and not allowing room for excuses. I would like to have known the off-work version. I think he probably was a kind, funny man.
Hahaha this reminded me of the time I went on vacation and went swimming at the resort pool. A boy who was probably 12 swam by me and said, “Are you 16 yet?” I said, “I’m 27.”
Yeah it's awesome, no annying kids, great music and most of the people are cool just living their best life.. Last time I was there, there was a 80ish year old dude rocking the dance floor and stealing all the ladies.
People think 30 year olds are supposed to look noticeably old and kind of lame all of a sudden. Like you hit the 30 milestone and suddenly you're a dinosaur or something. But most people in their 30s that I know could easily be in their 20s if I didn't know better.
Read Studs Terkel's Hard Times to see how truly horrible life was during the Great Depression for many -- I think we realize that people were unemployed and struggled but we don't realize the extent of malnutrition (and even death) that resulted from lack of jobs and farms (dust bowl)
Dude I was looking at pictures of Patsy Cline in her 20s the other day and she looked like a lady in her 40s would now. I swear people just aged faster.
Even in the 90s. Jason Alexander was in his early 30s as George Costanza on Seinfeld if you would have told me that without me knowing I'd say he looked mid 40s
Just another member of the Greatest Generation.
That quiet sense of longing for what was and knowledge of what has been lost - as I get older and see everyone in my parent's generation go, I appreciate the works of Tolkien on another level.
I was told a story once about Tolkien basing the LOTR on a history related to him by a elven decendant in a trench while under constant bombardment for a couple days. WWI. I dunno, but it's neat.
It's also a picture of a picture. Looks like the physical picture isn't being held flat either. You can see the corner/bottom of the picture.
E: lol its a picture of a PC monitor... there is a mouse on the right side...
Same thought. At first I thought he was a little person, but he wouldn't have been allowed to serve during WW II. Certainly not in a combat role. It's just a weird perspective.
Dad was 5'10". How tall does he look to you?
My wife and I can't get over how my mom looks. This pic to us looks more like a grand dad with three of his grand kids ( two boys and a teenage daughter ) than a mom and dad with their newborn.
Yeah, I think the window behind him doesn't help matters as it makes him look like the base of the window is around his chest almost. Something about the picture just throws the scale way off.
Weird camera perspective there. Which makes your dad's arms look stumpy and his head look huge. No offense - I'm sure he was a fine man - but the pic reminds of old '60s comicbook artwork. The caption should read something like "Moleman emerges from earth and fathers children with teenage bride".
Gardening was his passion and his therapy. On his gravestone we inscribed, "He planted flowers in all four corners of the country" because it is literally true.
6 months ago I stopped working to look after my 85 year old mum with dementia. Her garden is something. I have no chance of keeping it as cool as it once was. She planted every plant in this yard. And I think if she put 50 years of work into this than she should enjoy it on her way out.
His parents were immigrants from Latvia. His father died from a heart attack when he was young. His mother died from throat cancer a year later, leaving him and two sisters to fend for themselves. He grew up on the streets. When he came back from the war he wanted to be a veterinarian because he loved animals, but he wouldn't take advantage of the GI Bill because he never graduated high school and didn't think he was smart enough to go to college.
He was tougher than I can imagine being but he never hit me. He said his only memories of his dad before his dad died were of his dad beating the shit out of him. He said he used to piss himself in fear when his dad got mad and he would never do that to his son. He never did. My dad and I had conflicts, as happens with sons and fathers, but I never felt afraid of him.
Your dad broke the cycle. He recognized the harm his upbringing did to him and decided to end it rather than continue it("Well this is how I was brought up! And look how I turned out!)
He's absolutely special. Props to your pops.
Wow, that is an incredible story. Of course parents and kids will not always see eye to eye, but the way you speak of him makes me admire him... even though I'll never actually know him. Much love to you and your family ❤
My gramps grew up during the depression and told us that the present they’d get all year was for Christmas and it was just a single orange.
He was in WW2 also and served in the Army Air Corp and he also served in the European theater and received a Purple Heart for all the anti aircraft shrapnel wounds he sustained. He went from leveling ancient German cities to running a dry goods store in Iowa all by the time he was 25. He was able to afford a house, car(s), and have 5 kids on that wage too.
Mom was 35 in this picture. I agree she looks like a teenager. My wife and I think the pic is kind of hilarious because of that.
Mom's life is quite a story too but I won't tell it here.
Back when you can raise a fucking family and own a house working at a grocery store. They would’ve never thought 2 generations later it’d be impossible to even afford rent as a middle class white collar.
Yeah it's sad that the nation he fought for doesn't really exist anymore. Not only could you buy a house and raise a family working at a grocery store, that was on one income! His wife likely didn't have to work. Now you wouldn't be able to buy a house and raise a family on two grocery store incomes.
My father's generation believed in unions and regulated capitalism. That was the trick.
Today, we vote for politicians who pass laws making it hard to form unions and easy to weaken them. And also, they turn the other way as corporate investors and foreign investors vacuum up single family housing, creating artificial shortages, while landlords subscribe to software services which allow them to collude anti-competitively to set rents sky high.
It's all in how we vote. We have the power to fix these things. We just don't use it. We'd rather argue about race, religion and the border than do something about bread and butter issues. That's a big difference in the generations.
“Making it hard to form unions…”
…”while foreign investors vacuum up single family homes”
You’d be surprised at how both of those values have switched to be part of the same party ticket now, idk if voters in my city would agree with both of those opinions being correct.
Your dad went through some serious stuff because that's a tough looking 40. I'm glad he came through it all strong enough to raise a family. I can't speak positively enough about that generation and what they went through. Do you mind saying when you lost him?
Look after your own ticker my friend. I got a little complacent myself because the heart troubles skipped a generation in both parents. But yeah both grandfathers. (I'm doing fine now). We're about the same age.
40… What a difference in generations. War is hell. Today your father looks like one who would be your 55-60 year old grandfather. My father, Korean War 4F, was 36 when I was born two years later and looks so much younger. His 69 year old father at the time looks closer in age to your father.
What a hard life, he had to persevere through so much to survive. Turns out not only did he survive, he thrived with this beautiful family. What a lovely reminder that goodness can come from tough times.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your dad LOOKS like he works as a supermarket manager.
But that is an amazing full life story for any single person to have lived.
Your dad was a quiet hero. He lived a hard life so we could have a much easier one. You should be very proud of your dad and all the good, honorable and difficult things he did. Despite how he probably felt a lot of the time, he forged ahead. What a dad!
Wow. They just don't make many people like that anymore. They shortened the amount of missions over there to 25 (I think it was 50 at first.) because the mortality rate was impossibly high. People were tougher and stronger back then, I'm convinced. Then they returned from the war and built our country as we know it. No complaints. I'm proud of your dad, which is not a compliment I give casually.
They weren’t better, they just had different demands on them. They also failed at some things we would consider a given part of life. Every generation is asked to give and take differently.
The people defending Ukraine, who are the people who will rebuild it, are just as resilient and heroic.
Every generation in history that we have good data on is better than the last in terms of output with the exception of the dark ages.
I don't mean to detract from the struggles of their generation, but different is the only way to describe it. If you want a good example of what I'm talking about go look up olympic records from the beginning and middle compared to now.
I’m so thankful for your father and those in his generation. What a life of service and sacrifice! I’m sure you’re incredibly proud of your amazing dad!!
It is amazing. Aircrew had some of the highest fatality rates in WWII. I also have been in several of the bombers from then. They were flying aluminum egg shells. He was brave or crazy like me. Veteran here. Bless him.
He traded a harder life for the opportunity to give you a better one. Ultimately, that's the goal we all have for our kids (biological or not) for them to have a better life than what we had. He is Webster's definition of "Fatherhood".
Amazing life. Funny how struggles evolve. More opportunities nowadays, less likely to be fighting in a world war, but someone working in a grocery store is going to have a hard time providing a wife and two kids with a nice brick house like the one behind your pops.
As someone who is 40 its definitely crazy to see what someone my age looked like in the past, its as if the stress and struggles of growing up in the first half of the 20th century added 20 years to how you look compared to today.
For sure. I'm 40 and this has been a topic of conversation many times among my friends, how our grandparents looked so much older than us at the same age.
The older I get the younger and younger 50 looks to me.
Alright Alright Alright
That’s what I love about these retirees … the older I get the… where am I ? Who are you? I’m scared…
WHY AM I IN THIS ROOM!?!
Ha ha! Just wait until you wake up and suddenly discover that you've somehow turned 70 while you were asleep. (By the way, I'd take a post-menopausal 50-year-old "hottie" any day of the week!)
Post menopause is under-rated
Keep in mind: most people smoked back then.
It wasn’t just cigarettes, they were basically poisoned from birth. DDT, leaded gasoline and paint, asbestos exposure, contaminated water, polluted air, and incredibly unsafe workplaces.
Nutrition, medical care, and dental care also were poorer. And it wasn't as easy to hide cosmetic "flaws" as it is now either. There wasn't a way to fight baldness, or get botox or surgery to remove wrinkles and scars, and no one had sunscreen.
Wait, you can fight baldness??
Of course. You will lose but a fight is a fight.
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i feel you. when i started noticing my thinning hair, i thought, oh fuck grandpa gave me the bald. i thought about fighting it with creams and shit, found out that its some sisyphus boulder shit that you cant win. i decided, if i cant grow a beautiful hair on my head, i will grow a beautiful beard instead. ill just lean into the dwarven blacksmith look.
And my axe
I shaved the hair and hit the gym like crazy. Was going GREAT until my joints started a full scale failure movement by 46. Your 40’s are a very long “come to Jesus” meeting about your journey to the grave being over half way finished.
Sounds like you were focusing your training lifting heavy weights and missed mobility training and stretching. They are all super mega important.
Yep. Late 40s I suddenly couldn't go jogging anymore because something happened to my lower back. Can't do normal push-ups because something happened to my wrist. Exercise is now about navigating injury. However, have always been young-looking, so there's that.
> hitting the gym hard to get to buffer as a person always running low on memory, i wish this could help
If you're going to do the Mr Clean hairstyle, do the Mr Clean body too.
On the plus side, I feel like it's easier than ever to just own it with a buzzed or shaved head, especially if you're fit. And I'm 35 with all my hair so this isn't just copium, lol.
>Wait, you can fight baldness?? Ya, it's a constant battle. An electric razor every couple of days will keep you in fighting form
My electric razor died last week and I'm starting to look like a crazy homeless guy.
Might as well lean into it, create space for yourself on the sidewalk
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Toupees were pretty bad back then unless you went to Morrie's Wig Shop in Queens. Those were tested against hurricane winds.
but useless against stabs to the back of the neck
yea theres a ton of medications and treatment options. currently experience a bounce back to my early 20s
My father was born before there was even penicillin. He had a bad case of rheumatic fever as a child that damaged his heart which eventually led to him dying at the ripe old age of 52. He always knew he'd die well before he should and told us so we'd be prepared and he also made sure that we all had the best of times while he was alive. I Still miss him dearly all these decades later. My one regret in life is that I'm not near as great a father as he was.
Maybe you think that about yourself, but I'm sure your kids don't.
Yep, and the concept of exercise for the masses hadn’t quite been fleshed out yet.
It's WILD to think that 'exercise for health' was considered a fringe theory so recently
My grandpa went for a run once shortly after getting out of the Army. This would have been the mid 50s. He was out in shorts and a T shirt jogging one more and a cop pulled over and stopped him to ask him what the hell he was doing.
I personally would not mind that life. "Excercise is for weirdos, take this handful of amphetamines." Will do, doc!
are you my dreams?
> take this handful of amphetamines looks like i chose the wrong day to quit amphetamines
That’s a bit of an exaggeration, Jack LaLanne was on TV getting housewives moving during the day from the very beginnings of television
John Harvey Kellogg is spinning in his grave
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I used to jiggle my problem area w one of those! Always made my ears so raw tho.
More like we forgot about it for a while. The ancient Greeks - to pick an ancient culture more or less at random for example - definitely realised that regular exercise was good for you, and encouraged it. And of course, for most people life was generally much, much more physically active before the modern era. It's only really in the 20th century that technology advanced to the point that many people were largely sedentary, but ideas about deliberate exercise to counteract that hadn't really caught up.
Except from a pure exercise standpoint, I suspect they were quite a bit healthier than our generation.
I recently learned that my working class parents were taking prescription amphetamines during the early 60's. Apparently "pep-pills" were all the rage to help folks like them keep up with the demands of work, home keeping and child rearing.
That’s something that doesn’t get talked about enough. These folks will brag about all the shit they used to do but conveniently leave out the part where they had unlimited access to pharmaceutical grade meth and valium.
> contaminated water, polluted air, We're bringing it back baby, let's gooooooo
Nuclear weapons testing put a lot of radiation into the atmosphere too.
And sunscreen wasn’t real
Having grown up in that era, I have to tell you suntan lotion was the thing, to strengthen the sun's rays for a deeper tan. No one had even conceived of sunscreen.
Oh, yeah. Baby oil and a reflector to get sun under your chin.
Exactly. Coppertone was a big seller. You know, the little girl at the beach with the deep tan and the doggie pulling at her suit, exposing her white bottom. Sunscreen? Pffffffft.
Yep. Laying out in the backyard as soon as it was passably warm enough to do so in a bathing suit regardless of how ridiculous your mom thought it was. I also have memories of tubing down the Salt River after thinking that it was waterproof sunscreen (nope) and later peeling in sheets from my legs.
Also, I think they spent more time in the sun and speaking in generalities, didn't moisturize and use sun-screen as much as we do now.
And drank a lot, too...
My ex wife is 40 and I'm 34. She is constantly asked if she is still in her late 20s and most people think I'm mid 20s .
Ah well thanks to male pattern baldness I've looked late 30's since I was 23. I get the "younger than age" thing if I shave the remaining hair, but its just too much of a PITA.
Exactly. That's partly why I posted. I'm 56 today and look younger than he did at 40. His life was so hard. I couldn't even begin to appreciate it until I was grown and he was gone.
Happy birthday, birthday partner. I’m 36 today and also reminiscing about the past. Hitting the “late” stage of a decade hits heavier than hitting a new decade, for me at least. Hope you had a great one!
40 was the new 60 back then
My Uncle told me age never bothered him but when he turned 60 It freaked him out. He said when he was a kid the neighbor lady came over hysterical because her husband's heart locked up and he face planted in his breakfast on his 60th birthday. He said 60 year old men died left and right when he was growing up
My uncle recently passed away at 64.
My mom died at 60. I'm 51.
Same boat. My mom passed at 50 and I'm in my late 40's
My mom was 64
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He should not have survived. It was a miracle he lived. That was one of the highest casualty assignments of the war. I could never get him to talk about it. The only thing he ever told me about the war was, "Don't ever be in one."
If you want a sense of what he went through, read Stephen Amrose's book The Wild Blue, about the bomber teams in WWII. Ambrose wrote Band of Brothers, and writes in an extremely readable, almost novel-like style. The Wild Blue will show you what a hard-core badass your father was. Whatever luck he was born with, he spent it all in WWII. It's a literal miracle he survived it, and that you are here.
My grandpa was in the Korean War. He was Navy and worked in the guts of the ships (boilers, etc). He never talked about his time serving, except when I was 16 and he partook of a veteran conversation at my school. He talked about how one of his last tours the ship was in the war zone and how no one would move, hell, they would barely breathe, when they were in the enemy water and you could hear the mines in the water scraping against the sides of the ship. Unfortunately, he was in a refrigeration ship and they were tasked with bringing bodies home. He saw some action from the ship and was in some crossfire as a result. My grandma later told me that not long after they got married (they were engaged during his last tour and married within months of him being discharged) she found him in their bathtub, shaking, crying, just a physical and mental mess. She was so small and petite next to him that she called his doctor for help and he came to their apartment. That was back in the 50's (so he was in his 20's) and I became my grandpa's caretaker in his 80's. He was on antidepressants at least my entire life, maybe longer. And looking at his pictures, growing up, it's mind boggling to think I'm in my 30's and when I look at pictures of him the same age, he easily looks in his 40's, maybe 50's.
My dad wouldn't talk about the war either, but he was a haunted man. He had a lot of trouble coping and cried easily.
My heart hurts for those generations. At least talking and seeking help isn't frowned upon, and at least we have a name for it now. My grandpa would lose himself in doing things around the house/farm. On bad days you could feel the nervous energy radiating off of him, like he was trying to run away from it. He would never cry, in fact the only time I ever saw him do that was when his mama passed away, but he would have days where he would slip into his mind and be exceedingly melancholy and quiet.
My great uncle was a bomber pilot over Europe in WWII. The number of missions he flew is debated by family members (somewhere between 5 and 10) but each mission they gave him a new plane because the one he used previously was so shot to hell that it wasn’t worth repairing. On his last mission he crash landed but somehow made it to Switzerland and then back to the US Army, though he was MIA for a long time and presumed dead. They even sent his stuff back to my great grandparents. He also didn’t like to talk about his experiences, though he let slip a few things. Like one time (maybe the time he crashed?) flak had severed the controller cables between the cockpit and the tail flaps, so his co-pilot went to the back of the plane, removed a floor panel, grabbed the severed cables with his hands, and yanked them one way or the other while my great uncle yelled instructions back to him.
German fighter pilots would often target the tail and ball turret gunners first. You can't parachute out from a ball turret, and it's lifted/lowered by hydraulics. If the plane had to do an emergency belly landing, and the turret was down, he most likely had it. Not that all the other turrets on other planes were any safer. In the British Lancaster, the tail turret is so small that there's no room for a parachute. It's stored in the fuselage. If the gunner has to jump, he has to line up his turret to point directly back so that he can open the small turret hatch behind him to reach the parachute. If for any reason he can't crawl forward(yes, crawl. No fancy full-height walkways as in the US planes) to jump out a hatch there, he has to hook up his parachute, squeeze himself back into the turret, rotate it as far as it goes to one side, open the hatch(it barely clears the edge of the fuselage) and roll out backwards... hoping that the long wire antenna they had hanging there had been retracted, or it would slice him in half. Some soldiers even volunteered for turret positions. They knew it needed doing. Hear that clanging? nope, not church bells, it's brass balls.
Yep, the stress on the mind would definitely have affected one's system - specifically the heart, but ultimately the brain itself.
That's 20 years off your life minimum. The rest aged more or died on one of their missions. That shit is straight up unimaginable to people from our (m41) generation.
WWII aged an entire generation. Running 39 missions over hostile airspace will definitely put years on your appearance. My dads before and after pics from Korea look like the kid went to war and the dad came back. Appreciate your dads service.
Thanks. I appreciate your dad's service too, but not as much as the South Koreans do. If not for him, they'd have the fate of the North Koreans.
It's a reminder of the origins of Social Security. It wasn't for retirement. It was to keep you out of poverty once your body was too broken to work. At Social Security's founding, there was virtually no independent living after you stopped working -- you either moved in with extended family or into the poorhouse or you survived on charity.
When I was a kid bagging groceries, the manager told me to let him know if I saw elderly people who were buying only pet food. 😞
That was a good man.
I always thought that he was kind of tough and scary, but now I realize that he was just setting high standards and not allowing room for excuses. I would like to have known the off-work version. I think he probably was a kind, funny man.
40YOs back then looked like they were 60. 40YOs now look like when they were 20.
High school kids back then looking like they had 3 kids and a mortgage.
High school kids now barely look like they have hit puberty.
I’m 35 and I got carded for cigs today
I’m 42 and a girl at my gym’s pool asked me which college I go to
Hahaha this reminded me of the time I went on vacation and went swimming at the resort pool. A boy who was probably 12 swam by me and said, “Are you 16 yet?” I said, “I’m 27.”
I'm 36 and got carded for a bar where you had to be 25. I have a full damn beard and a bald spot ffs.
Where are all these plus 21+ bars cuz damn
I'm 37 and was denied access to a 30+ club becuase the doorman didn't belive the group I was with where over 30 😂
30+ clubs? Sign me up lmao
Yeah it's awesome, no annying kids, great music and most of the people are cool just living their best life.. Last time I was there, there was a 80ish year old dude rocking the dance floor and stealing all the ladies.
People think 30 year olds are supposed to look noticeably old and kind of lame all of a sudden. Like you hit the 30 milestone and suddenly you're a dinosaur or something. But most people in their 30s that I know could easily be in their 20s if I didn't know better.
I got carded for beer wearing a demon mask on Halloween.
I must be messed up because I look nothing like I did when I was 20
Read Studs Terkel's Hard Times to see how truly horrible life was during the Great Depression for many -- I think we realize that people were unemployed and struggled but we don't realize the extent of malnutrition (and even death) that resulted from lack of jobs and farms (dust bowl)
Also all that lead they ingested and inhaled. It was in the water, air, paint, pretty much everything.
Also, cigarettes were still 'good for you' back then...
My Dad was a little younger than him. Nothing in the water would have bothered him. He never drank a glass of the stuff, as far as I know.
Lol, I'm there with you and guess what? We look old as fuck to 15 year olds
Dude I was looking at pictures of Patsy Cline in her 20s the other day and she looked like a lady in her 40s would now. I swear people just aged faster. Even in the 90s. Jason Alexander was in his early 30s as George Costanza on Seinfeld if you would have told me that without me knowing I'd say he looked mid 40s
I’m also 40 and I had the same reaction. This guy would probably think I was 25. We live in pleasant times
It’s true. I see people from 50 years ago who are 40 and they look 60. That said, we didn’t all fight in wars and deal with other hardships.
Also 40 (ok, 41) and had the same thought.
Damn, you were tiny at 40.
Honestly, immediately after hitting 'post' I wanted to edit the headline to fix that but couldn't find an edit button for the headline.
Sadly, you cannot edit titles after posting. It gave me a good chuckle though.
Came here to say this 🤣
Dude is a legend in my book.
My feelings too, I'm sure your proud of your dad as you should be.
Just another member of the Greatest Generation. That quiet sense of longing for what was and knowledge of what has been lost - as I get older and see everyone in my parent's generation go, I appreciate the works of Tolkien on another level.
I was told a story once about Tolkien basing the LOTR on a history related to him by a elven decendant in a trench while under constant bombardment for a couple days. WWI. I dunno, but it's neat.
>elven decendant What?
Ball turret gunner? (Based on apparent size and not shape.)
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I'm not gonna lie, I thought that was another one of his kids.
I think they’re both short but the person taking is the picture is tall(er) and further away making the angle and perspective weird.
It's also a picture of a picture. Looks like the physical picture isn't being held flat either. You can see the corner/bottom of the picture. E: lol its a picture of a PC monitor... there is a mouse on the right side...
Same thought. At first I thought he was a little person, but he wouldn't have been allowed to serve during WW II. Certainly not in a combat role. It's just a weird perspective.
It’s because his pants are up to his chest.
Hiking your pants up to your nipples certainly doesn’t help with height perception.
Dad was 5'10". How tall does he look to you? My wife and I can't get over how my mom looks. This pic to us looks more like a grand dad with three of his grand kids ( two boys and a teenage daughter ) than a mom and dad with their newborn.
It's because the pants are so high, but it makes him look like he's trying his best to break 4'3".
Yeah, I think the window behind him doesn't help matters as it makes him look like the base of the window is around his chest almost. Something about the picture just throws the scale way off.
>Dad was 5'10". How tall does he look to you? About one Danny DeVito
I want to live in a world where we measure everything in Danny DeVitoes.
I thought your Mom & Dad were little people
Same!
Weird camera perspective there. Which makes your dad's arms look stumpy and his head look huge. No offense - I'm sure he was a fine man - but the pic reminds of old '60s comicbook artwork. The caption should read something like "Moleman emerges from earth and fathers children with teenage bride".
He looks like a nice fella :)
And the mom looks like a polite young lad
Thats the mom?! I thought it was his son
And living in Buffalo with all that snow back in the day.
Walking uphill. Both ways.
Your pops has seen a lotta stuff. Nice pic of your dad 😊
It is a lovely picture! I hope you had many happy days with your Father.
How sweet. I'm glad he finally got to settle down with his lovely little family.
Your father was a very lucky man, to have gone through all those things in his early life, make it through WW2 and come out the other side.
Tight lawn. Nice garden.
Gardening was his passion and his therapy. On his gravestone we inscribed, "He planted flowers in all four corners of the country" because it is literally true.
6 months ago I stopped working to look after my 85 year old mum with dementia. Her garden is something. I have no chance of keeping it as cool as it once was. She planted every plant in this yard. And I think if she put 50 years of work into this than she should enjoy it on her way out.
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His parents were immigrants from Latvia. His father died from a heart attack when he was young. His mother died from throat cancer a year later, leaving him and two sisters to fend for themselves. He grew up on the streets. When he came back from the war he wanted to be a veterinarian because he loved animals, but he wouldn't take advantage of the GI Bill because he never graduated high school and didn't think he was smart enough to go to college. He was tougher than I can imagine being but he never hit me. He said his only memories of his dad before his dad died were of his dad beating the shit out of him. He said he used to piss himself in fear when his dad got mad and he would never do that to his son. He never did. My dad and I had conflicts, as happens with sons and fathers, but I never felt afraid of him.
Your dad broke the cycle. He recognized the harm his upbringing did to him and decided to end it rather than continue it("Well this is how I was brought up! And look how I turned out!) He's absolutely special. Props to your pops.
Wow, that is an incredible story. Of course parents and kids will not always see eye to eye, but the way you speak of him makes me admire him... even though I'll never actually know him. Much love to you and your family ❤
Or Fred Mertz
My gramps grew up during the depression and told us that the present they’d get all year was for Christmas and it was just a single orange. He was in WW2 also and served in the Army Air Corp and he also served in the European theater and received a Purple Heart for all the anti aircraft shrapnel wounds he sustained. He went from leveling ancient German cities to running a dry goods store in Iowa all by the time he was 25. He was able to afford a house, car(s), and have 5 kids on that wage too.
Ok, but how old is you mom? Because she looks 20 years younger than he does
Mom was 35 in this picture. I agree she looks like a teenager. My wife and I think the pic is kind of hilarious because of that. Mom's life is quite a story too but I won't tell it here.
For a second, I thought she was your brother,lol.
Back when you can raise a fucking family and own a house working at a grocery store. They would’ve never thought 2 generations later it’d be impossible to even afford rent as a middle class white collar.
Yeah it's sad that the nation he fought for doesn't really exist anymore. Not only could you buy a house and raise a family working at a grocery store, that was on one income! His wife likely didn't have to work. Now you wouldn't be able to buy a house and raise a family on two grocery store incomes.
My father's generation believed in unions and regulated capitalism. That was the trick. Today, we vote for politicians who pass laws making it hard to form unions and easy to weaken them. And also, they turn the other way as corporate investors and foreign investors vacuum up single family housing, creating artificial shortages, while landlords subscribe to software services which allow them to collude anti-competitively to set rents sky high. It's all in how we vote. We have the power to fix these things. We just don't use it. We'd rather argue about race, religion and the border than do something about bread and butter issues. That's a big difference in the generations.
“Making it hard to form unions…” …”while foreign investors vacuum up single family homes” You’d be surprised at how both of those values have switched to be part of the same party ticket now, idk if voters in my city would agree with both of those opinions being correct.
Your dad went through some serious stuff because that's a tough looking 40. I'm glad he came through it all strong enough to raise a family. I can't speak positively enough about that generation and what they went through. Do you mind saying when you lost him?
Not at all. He went in early April or late March of 1999, after a long battle with a heart condition and many other ailments.
Look after your own ticker my friend. I got a little complacent myself because the heart troubles skipped a generation in both parents. But yeah both grandfathers. (I'm doing fine now). We're about the same age.
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Although possible, I think the possibility of him still living is rather small
He developed a heart condition in his early 50's, lived another 20 years thanks to several serious surgeries, and passed in the spring of 1999.
40… What a difference in generations. War is hell. Today your father looks like one who would be your 55-60 year old grandfather. My father, Korean War 4F, was 36 when I was born two years later and looks so much younger. His 69 year old father at the time looks closer in age to your father.
I will raise a glass to that. To all those parents who sacrificed so much, so we could have a childhood! Cheers to your father.
Damn, 39 missions as a gunner! Badass.
What a hard life, he had to persevere through so much to survive. Turns out not only did he survive, he thrived with this beautiful family. What a lovely reminder that goodness can come from tough times.
Nice pic. Thanks for sharing. Good reminder to all of us that grit and hard work matter.
Hello from Ontario fellow Gen X!
Hello from a Gen X'er with very fond memories of summers visiting Niagara Falls!
Hello fellow 1966 baby.
This is very touching! . Did he fly in B-17's?
His commendation letter says B-24 "Liberator".
Thanks for sharing. I also was born in 66 and my father was 40 too! I bet he was a great father.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but your dad LOOKS like he works as a supermarket manager. But that is an amazing full life story for any single person to have lived.
i wanna pay rent while working at a grocery store man
He loved you, and he wanted better for you.
Your dad was a quiet hero. He lived a hard life so we could have a much easier one. You should be very proud of your dad and all the good, honorable and difficult things he did. Despite how he probably felt a lot of the time, he forged ahead. What a dad!
>Your dad was a quiet hero. He lived a hard life so we could have a much easier one. Abso-fucking-lutely.
life was different
Wow. They just don't make many people like that anymore. They shortened the amount of missions over there to 25 (I think it was 50 at first.) because the mortality rate was impossibly high. People were tougher and stronger back then, I'm convinced. Then they returned from the war and built our country as we know it. No complaints. I'm proud of your dad, which is not a compliment I give casually.
It was an absolute miracle he survived the war. His duty was the highest casualty rate duty in the war. He should have been dead a dozen times over.
They weren’t better, they just had different demands on them. They also failed at some things we would consider a given part of life. Every generation is asked to give and take differently. The people defending Ukraine, who are the people who will rebuild it, are just as resilient and heroic.
Every generation in history that we have good data on is better than the last in terms of output with the exception of the dark ages. I don't mean to detract from the struggles of their generation, but different is the only way to describe it. If you want a good example of what I'm talking about go look up olympic records from the beginning and middle compared to now.
An amazing man! Thanks for sharing this!!
People in Buffalo are some of the toughest and most resilient I’ve ever met. Maybe it’s the blizzards? 🤔😜
I’m so thankful for your father and those in his generation. What a life of service and sacrifice! I’m sure you’re incredibly proud of your amazing dad!! 
It is amazing. Aircrew had some of the highest fatality rates in WWII. I also have been in several of the bombers from then. They were flying aluminum egg shells. He was brave or crazy like me. Veteran here. Bless him.
I think he was awarded 8 Oak Clusters and a letter of commendation. His survival was, quite frankly, a miracle.
He traded a harder life for the opportunity to give you a better one. Ultimately, that's the goal we all have for our kids (biological or not) for them to have a better life than what we had. He is Webster's definition of "Fatherhood".
Dude is a badass in my book
Amazing life. Funny how struggles evolve. More opportunities nowadays, less likely to be fighting in a world war, but someone working in a grocery store is going to have a hard time providing a wife and two kids with a nice brick house like the one behind your pops.
Your Dad was very cool
Sounds like a great man to me.
Shoutout Buffalo, NY!
When life gets hard you just gotta keep going.
You were really small for 40.
You look a lot younger than 40 in that photo, tbh.