My Grandfather told me to watch out for women with tattoos, be careful what you ask for, and no good deed goes unpunished. There were quite a few more, but what did your grandfather tell you about life and its' potholes?

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Go big or stay home

If you find someone that likes dogs, you can trust them to watch your back , but if they don't like dogs - never trust them.

the only saying that my grandpa gave me was this " a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do

A man should always know where his trousers are.

Never fry bacon if you're naked.

-ETA- When I was 16, my dad DID tell me that, "No matter how beautiful she may be, somebody somewhere is tired of her ****". I hope my passing that to my sons will help smooth out their lives the way it did mine.

These days if you have to watch out for women with tattoos you're watching out for what seems like half the female population. Even my oldest daughter got one. I was NOT happy. Her younger sisters assure me they will not be following suit. We'll see.

The thing I remember most from my grandfather was him telling me if he ever caught me smoking he'd tan my hide. This, as he was lighting up a hand-rolled cigarette. He said he couldn't quit at his age but wished he'd never started. He had lung problems from the time I could remember. This happened when I was about ten, which would have made him about seventy. It made such an impression on me I could tell you even now where we were, what vehicle we were in, and what we were doing.

I didn't cry at my father's funeral. My grandfather's, I broke down and couldn't even speak. I never had any sons I could name in his honor. Man, I miss him.

Pay a man what the job is worth and he'll do you a good job and come back for more. It's been 35 years ago now but I learned this lesson well watching my Grandfather hire my friends to haul hay for him. I hauled hay for him for a decade between the age of 10 and 20. Truth is that most of boys my age hauled hay for any and all of the local farmers that would have them. If you could get enough farmers to hire you, you could move from farmer to farmer and then crop to crop and literally haul hay from 1st crop through 4th crop with hardly a day wasted should the season permit. It was the best money we could make in a rural area at the time.

All of the young men wanted to work and liked working for my grandfather because he compensated them well for their hard work. He always had something for them to eat (fruits, home made breads and such) and plenty of something to drink and the time to do it. Hydration was very important. I saw many a boy puking from heat stroke. Anyone that has hauled bailed hay knows this is hard work. The kids didn't screw around while working for him because they wanted to do it again. He also wouldn't kill the kids. He would start us very early, sometimes as early as 4 or 5 in the morning but would let the kids go home around noon as the temps approached 100 degrees. Sometimes he would have the boys come back in the evening depending on the the heat as it usually took a week or two to get all the hay out of the fields.

Other farmers were interested in getting all they could out of these kids for a bit of nothing, they would work them through high temps for low pay. I watched the same kids that worked well for my Grandfather work with a lot less zeal when working for other farmers. Grandpa paid all of us kids the same rate, I got no special consideration but was able to see the value as I also worked in a grocery store as a bag/stock boy at the same time and could make the comparison. I could more than double my grocery store wage while hauling for Grandpa. The store would pay me a $2/hr. and Grandpa payed $5/hr. Other farmers would only pay $3 or so. The pay was actually good enough at the time that young married men would come and work with us in the evenings after they had put a full day in. The pay probably equaled what many were making and he always had cash to hand you at the end of every shift. I appreciated the fact that he respected and valued my friends and me. Lesson well learned.

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FCSA Member
NRA Benefactor

My grandpa was the opposite. Here we are haveing a pipe together, probley back in 1944. Grandpa was a local legend. He loved to smoke, drink and argue politics. He never met a stranger!

When you're watering the garden, you don't want water on the leaves, you want water on the roots.

Grandpa never said much, it's what he did that spoke volumes

1. He worked hard and he worked long. Well into his 80's
2. Went to church every Sunday. Said when young whenever he worked on Sunday he always broke down so that was the Lords way of reminding him that Sunday was his day.
3. He never spoke ill will of anyone nor did I ever hear him take the Lords name in vain.
4. He was on his way home from church on the Sunday that Pearl Harbor was attacked and when he got home, he sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands and tears in his eyes asking how could anyone do that to our boys after he'd fought the war to end all wars. (He was in the infantry in France in WWI)
5. The summers I worked for him, he called me "Son"
6. When he died in 1968 he had less that $500 to his name. He'd not only raised his family but that of my grandmothers widowed sister.

Maybe it was Grandpa that said to marry a woman with small hands but I think I heard that much later

My gramps was a man of few words. He was a thin man, skin burnt dark brown from working the fields, wore a railroad engineers cap and overalls. He seldom spoke to us kids but one night we were sitting out on the porch and he said "Son, if you don't stop pickin' at that it'll never heal."
Even though I never forgot that, I still tend to pick at scabs.

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

All my Grandparents died before I was born but one thing my Dad told me when I was very young has stuck with me my whole life, I am 62. He told a story of a father that told his young son to jump off a ladder into his arms, he would catch him. He did and after about five times the father side-stepped his son who crashed face first on the floor. When he asked why he did this his father said "don't ever trust anyone". As it turns out it seems my father was warning me about himself. I trust people that show me trust and respect. I never followed this from my father but there were a few that I wish I had.
Best, Frank.

Mine grandfather's favs were -
If you don't get an education you'll be digging ditches for the rest of your life. (I tried it - NO fun)
The only thing you'll ever get for nothing is nothing.
Remember to remember.

My dad didn't know ANYTHING - I guess
He'd say -- Looks like this is the Cubs' year

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In dog years I'm dead.

Grandpa;

"Real men don't abuse women, children or puppies."

Nothing from my Grandfathers.

But my Agriculture teacher said, "Marry a fat girl, she'll keep you warm in the winter and provide shade in the summer".

Granddad,"You better live right because you sleep talk".

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Dum vivo cano

Never trust anyone who smiles ALL the time.

Has proven to be pretty solid advise too!

I don't remember much about my Grandfather, but one of his favorite sayings was "If the dog would not have stopped to take a ****, he would have caught the rabbit." I was never exactly sure of the meaning behind it. He used it quite frequently.

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Mike in SouthCentral Kentucky

"Never trust a man who's butt (not quite the word he used) is wider than his shoulders"

My granddad, 'Herman the German", used to tell me "Allan, you're healthy as a horse and darn near as smart". Wish I was still that healthy...

Never say anything behind someones back that you would not say to their face.

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Always Stay Strong!

My Grandfather:
Never trust a man who wears a belt and suspenders, if he can't trust his own belt, you can't trust him;

Never go to work for a guy with lights in his barn, he'll work you all night.

If you get lost, day or night, let your horse have its head, he'll take you home.

Trust your horse at night, he don't want to walk off a cliff any more then you do

If you're setting around wittling, you'd better be making something besides a litter. (for prospective boy friends to my aunt, he's set on the porch and hand them a knive and stick of stove wood and they would wittle. If the prospectee just made shavings he'd run him off,saying if he wont make something while wittling, he wont make anything of his life).

Never have any truck with any man who wont squat and chat. Squating is the way to have a good conversation

My Father:
When on leave in route to Vietnam; Don't sharpen your bayonet, it'll stick when you poke some one.

When you're laying in the rain, remember, no matter how wet you are, there is always someplace wetter.

When I first joined the army, my father told me to screw up first thing, then do your best throughout training. You need to screw up to get the drill sgts watching you so they'll notice when you do things right

If God didn't want you to use our front sights, He wouldn't have put them on the pistol

From my old Field Training Officer Art Rosetti:
"Any time you give a citizen a break, it will come back to haunt you".

From real life experence:
"Never fire a 12 gauge inside a tunnel".

Always keep your pants and guns where you can find them in the dark.
Don't get involved with a woman that's rude to a waitress.

The best gauge of a mans character is to see how he treats the people that work for him.

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Field Researcher. IGC

Mine told me, the true test of character is not how you conduct yourself in the presence of others, but what you do when you are alone. Also told me that whenever you think you are getting something for nothing you'll get just about what you paid for it. He didn't say a lot but when he did he said A LOT.

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S&W Armorer
Lost in the 50s

" Never argue with a fool. On lookers may not be able to tell which one is the fool."

Never eat at a place called Mom's,
Never play poker with a guy named Ace,and
Never get involved with a woman who has more problems than you.

My Grandmother told me never to use tobacco, never drink liquor, and never play poker with strangers.......I should have listened better.

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Keep Shootin' and check 6

Get off my lawn!

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Even older, even crankier....

Never drink , smoke or chew. Or date women who do!

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JOSHUA 1:9

No real memories of either of my grandpas, one passed when I was too young to recall and the other was remarried even before that.
My grandmas, who just turned 97, says "you gotta eat a ton of dirt before you die" my dad says things like "an open mind is not the same as a hole in your head".

Not from my grandfather (a wonderful man who taught me to fish and much besides), but from a retired cabinetmaker who lived next door to my grandparents.

What he told me has come in handy in many areas of my life, including using my mind. He said, "Time spent sharpening your tools is never wasted."

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Oh well, what the hell.

Neither of my Grandfathers could speak English so I was never able to have any kind of long conversation with them.......

I never knew my Grandfathers as one died from Alcohol poisoning in the 1930s, the other died in Walla Walla, Washington when I was two.

My Dad told me a few things I cant say here=which included having fun with the ladies.

I didn't get any advice from my grandfathers as they passed when I was young...my dad gave me this advice when I was 14...don't go to bed with any girl you wouldn't marry...I laughed real hard...

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carpe diem
one day at a time

That was one I remember my dad said. I was too young to realize what he meant as in those days, I hated girls.

"Always drive a DeSoto."
Tough words to live up to.

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Not in jail.

I had the privilege of living with my Grandparents for the first 2 years of my undergraduate. The men in my family all suffer from insomnia (me included) so Gpa and I would talk late into the night, though he is still around we don't get together as such anymore. His pearls to me were as follows; All women are crazy, you need to find the amount of crazy you can put up with. I wish I would have joined the service, too bad I got polio, but you should join! (Wish I would have heeded that one a bit more). Stay close to the Lord, and get an education.
I love and admire my Gpa more than anyone else on this earth. He worked his way from nothing and polio, and went on to have a wonderful life and a full sized family.

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Still just a kid at heart