51. "Wow." In response to In response to 26 Mon May-16-16 10:59 PM by denny
That's an awesome legacy-type accomplishment for him though. (the bus thing) I bet that's a huge source of pride in your family.
I never got to meet my granddad...but there's one story that's been told to me over and over again. They were in the Netherlands suffering under Nazi occupation just after my dad was born. My GD was a fisherman but the Nazi's didn't allow that so he used to go out every morning in search of any paying gig. The family lived off of oatmeal for breakfast and potatoes for dinner for 2 to 3 years and all that was financed by finding random day-long gigs.
In anycase...he went out looking for a day's work but forgot his identification papers which could be demanded by Nazi soldiers at any time. So he gets stopped by a Nazi officer....no papers....gets put in the back of a truck and sent to a train station from which he'll be taken to a work camp. He didn't really know WHERE they were taking him...but he figured it couldn't have been good. Knowing that his family would probably starve without him....he and 2 others on the train decide to make an escape attempt. There's two Nazis on either end of the train and if you stick out your head out the windows of the train car they take a shot at you. So my granddad and two other guys waited til the train was on a curve and jumped out the window. He was a gymnast so he was able to land ok but the other two guys broke themselves up on the fall. He never found out what happened to them cause he just fled while avoiding a couple shots by the Nazi at the back-end of the train. So it took him a two days to walk back home....my grandma had assumed the worst so it was like a miraculous moment when he burst through the door.