My Grandpa is a pretty cool guy

I like going to see my Grandpa, even though my parents think he fills my head with stupid ideas. I'm not sure what they mean because I think the stories my Grandpa tells are really cool. It's not that I believe everything he tells me, but I think most of it is true.

He lives in an old people's home, at least that's what he calls it. Mum says it's a 'residence', but a residence is somehow different. I looked the word up on the internet, but this is different. Not like a palace, but not like a government building either. Anyway, every Friday I go to the 'Golden House Residence', where all the old people live, and visit Grandpa. He has a flatmate who is different from my grandfather, but also quite nice. 'We live in a flat-share', Grandpa always says, and then he chuckles to himself.

My Grandpa is different from everyone else here in the retirement home. He's the only one with long hair tied back. He doesn't have a bald patch yet, and I like his white mane. It reminds me of the fantasy stories I used to love to read. Yes, and he wears different clothes too, shirts with waistcoats over them and jeans. Mum always says that an old man should show a little more dignity and dress differently. But when Grandpa asks her with his typical grin what he should wear, she doesn't answer. I don't know him differently and I like him just the way he is.

He likes to talk about when he was my age – fourteen. It must have been an interesting time. They didn't have mobile phones then, which I found hard to believe at first. But Mr Shuller, his flatmate, said there were even people who didn't have a landline. I find that hard to imagine, but Grandpa says you can't miss something you've never had. In those days you had to arrange every meeting in advance; you couldn't communicate spontaneously. There were meeting places where you went because you knew everyone you knew would be there. But you could also be unlucky and end up alone. I think it's a bit of a hassle, but it's also kind of exciting.

When I want to do something, I text all my friends and set a time. It's easy. Grandpa calls it boring. When I asked him how they did it with the girls, Grandpa laughed out loud. 'We just talked to them', he chuckled. Man, just talking to them isn't for me. I think it's cooler to text them first to see if they're interested. But then he told me about the little notes they used to write to each other. I like that better. It's more romantic.

And then, as he got older, he got involved in things that were important to him. I love to hear those stories, especially when my parents don't want me to. Grandpa and his friends protested against the war because it wasn't fair. Then there were real fights with the police because they didn't like people protesting about something the government was doing. And they asked their parents questions about Adolf Hitler. I read about it on the internet and I learnt about it at school. I would have been against that too. I wouldn't have liked it if my parents had liked it either. But when I asked them about it, they just said, 'Leave the old stories alone, it's all in the past', and that they hadn't experienced any of it. 'Your Grandpa wasn't there either', they added.

Then there were the guys who were against animal testing and all that stuff, they really did something. Grandpa said a lot of what they did was illegal, but what a lot of people do at our school isn't legal either. And it doesn't help anybody. I asked my parents why they didn't stand up for something. But they didn't really understand what I wanted. None of my friends do anything either; we just sit around and play video games. Mum is afraid I'll hear too much about drugs from Grandpa. But he told me what it was back then. And when I hear how they smoked weed and sat around together, I think the boys at school who always have their flasks with them are probably crazier.

There were dangerous drugs too, but you couldn't just buy them in the corner shop. Grandpa says you shouldn't take anything because your mind is the most important thing you have. He also has a mobile phone and a laptop, and he's really good with them. He's also happy with the people he meets on the internet. But still, back then, everything was real time and live, always in 3D and Blu-ray, he winks at me. And it was all completely free.

Sometimes I think it would be exciting to live in that time for a week. Especially because Grandpa said: 'Beat somebody up until one of you is down and then kick him while he's down, that wouldn't have happened.' And I think that's really cool.

© 'My Grandpa is a pretty cool guy. Stories about my grandfather': A short story written by Winfried Brumma (Pressenet), 04/2025 (German: "Mein Opa ist total cool. Geschichten von meinem Großvater"). The image shows an old man, CC0 (public domain licence).