When did you realize your Grandparents were cool?

I realized that my grandmother (on my Mum's side), and by association the rest of my grandparents, was cool when I found these five photos of her in a shoebox in her room a few years ago.

The pictures were taken in 1938 while my grandmother was working at camp. She was 16 at the time. Despite her retro clothes, she too loved camping with her friends, swimming, being silly for the camera and having a drink. What most shocked me was how similar our faces were in the picture of her around the campfire - she is the blond on the left. It was weird to see some of my facial features in a person living over 70 years earlier.

That's when I decided that my grandparents, besides having a certain awesome factor as a result of their many stories from the wartime and growing up in foreign countries, were cool because they too were just individuals trying to find happiness in the world throughout their many stages of life. Just like I am doing.

Though all of my granparents are now deceased, I still think of them often and wish they could be here today. I wish I could know more about their lives and their dreams to be able to learn from their wisdom and experience.

Gordon Hull (top right) and Dot (Dorothy) Hull bottom.

Alex Thiel and Regina (Deschler) Thiel.