I consider myself very lucky to have known all my grandparents and three of the four are still alive. I even had a great grandmother alive until last winter.

From my maternal grandfather, I learned to work with my hands. He is and remains someone who amazes me with the broad reach of his talents. Carpentry, plumbing, minor electrical, etc. There's about nothing around the house (his and mine) that he can't formulate a plan to address or improve. Even in his early seventies, he just enclosed his carport to make an attached garage so my grandmother doesn't have to be exposed to the elements getting in and out of the car. For twenty years, he was the plant manager where I currently (and for the last seventeen years) work. He retired ten years ago and that gives him more time for projects!

From my paternal grandfather, I got a love of reading and learning. Not always the dry and dusty facts and figures of academia, but many things from out-of-the-way sources. Classic literature was a second love to him, closely behind my grandmother. When he passed, my grandmother began doling out his library to me in small doses at Christmas and Easter. I am blessed to have a well stocked set of bookshelves, more in boxes and memories of a loving man who appreciated them and taught me to do the same.

While none of this relates to kilt wearing (maternally english and paternally german) they all taught me to be my own man and comfortable in my own skin. When it came time to wear the kilt, there wasn't much self-doubt about it, thanks to the influence of my grandparents. In fact, all my grandparents enjoy the bagpipe and accept the kilt as a part of it. Even when I don't actually have a set of pipes with me at the moment!