My grandmother and I were talking this weekend, and she was telling me lots of stories about growing up and about her father.

My great-grandfather came to the US when he was 18, and spoke no English when he got here. He had a passion for learning, and although he always spoke with an accent, my grandmother says he had a larger vacabularly, and spoke better than my great-grandmother, who had come to this US when she was three.

He started out as a tailor, and soon ran his own shop. He left tailoring when the doctor told him that breathing in the fibers was ruining his health, so he quit tailoring and ended up in real estate.

He lost almost everything during the great depression, in part, my grandmother said, because he was too generous. He’d go to collect the rent, but if the renters told him they didn’t have the money because someone was sick, or was in between jobs, he’s say, that’s okay, I’ll get it next time. Next time, of course, they were gone. But he’d do the same thing the next time.

Grandmom told me that although her father had a quick temper, he typically snapped something and then immediately forgot about it, so nobody paid much attention to it.

Once, someone made a mistake, and her father snapped, “If you can’t get it right, then don’t bother coming to work!” and then oeft. The next day he was walking downtown and saw the gentleman he’s snapped at the day before. “Are you okay? Is everything all right? You didn’t come to work today.”
The man stuttered, “But, but, you told me not to come to work!”
Her father was stunned, “You mean you listened to me?!”