My grandfather also taught me about money. Everyone did, but my grandfather told me to keep a diary with exactly how much I spend, and make a proper budget. For some weird reason, I followed his advice. I started with my pocket money when I was 14 and have kept one to this very day. I am probably the only artist in the world who can tell you how much money he has in his pocket at any given time.
But the most characteristic thing of all was what my grandma said the first time I saw the moon. I must have been around 3 or so, which means it was in 1975, a few years after the first landing of 1969. And obviously at the peak of the Cold War. So I ask my grandmother:
“what’s that, granny?”
“The moon, my boy.”
“And what are those dark spots there?”
“Those are American austronauts”
“Do they live there?”
“No, they just went there to explore”.
It was the first time I’d heard the word “American”, let alone “astronaut”. And as I grew I realised the significance of what my granmother told me. For my generation, the Moon was a rocky planetoid conquered by Mankind. Or rather, by Americans in their struggle for ideological dominance in a complicated geopolitical situation. It was not a Godess, or a smily face, nor was it made of cheese. And no cat could fly over it anymore.