Thread: Movember 2016

Originally Posted by Crawler

Might as well update my Movember photo...

Attachment 248866

Nice incident counter. Where did you get it?
I'll use last yezrs pic, font wanna scare anyone away
Uhh double pisted

Originally Posted by whoever

Nice incident counter, where did u get it?

The wood plaque was bought at Hobby Lobby; found with the unfinished wood things. SWMBO painted what you see, using chalkboard paint for the black base color.

As promised, off with the lip!

This year, I bled again.
Cheers men!

Well, I'm in again!

I actually considered giving it a miss this year as I sensed folks in my circle were suffering a bit from donation fatigue. But then I saw that I've raised over $1100 since 2011, and figured that's worth keeping going.

http://mobro.co/gooner

I just mowed down my face for Movember. It was quite a pleasurable shave and when I was all finished up I started thinking about why I decided to participate this year. This will be a long post but I'm sure many of you will find it very interesting.

My motivation for Movember is my grandfather. He was the greatest husband, father, grandfather, and friend to those that knew him best. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer, but by the time they found it, it had spread to his bones. He was part of the "old school", doctors are the enemy crowd. I think he felt that doctors just want money and they diagnose and prescribe medicine just to make money. Had he sought help sooner, he would most likely still be here today.

He was born in Russia pre communism. The caste system was in place before the Bolshevik Revolution, and he was a Count. Im not entirely sure what that meant, but it was up there in the social class. When he was young the country collapsed. His family fled the country on foot, taking ony what they could carry with them. They made a new life in France.

When WWII was wrapping up, he was 15 years old and was fluent in Russian, German, Italian, French, and English. The Allies had a hard time getting all the misplaced people going to the right trains, buses etc, and he was able to help them by using his linguistics. Eventually he made it to the states in the early 50's, but that in itself presented a problem for him. The Communism scare was huge at this time. His last name was Voyekov, which screamed communist. His mother had remarried, and taken the last name Codoley, which they had hyphenated to be Codoley-Voyekov. So when he became an American he dropped his last name, and took Codoley, one which he had no blood connection to whatsoever, just to prevent himself from being scrutinized as a Communist.

In 1958, when my dad was a newborn, he was drafted into the Army. Not long after he completed training, he received orders to Korea. His CO was a Japanese American Colonel. He told him his life story, and how he had helped the Allies in France after the war, and his orders were changed to send him to Europe instead of Korea.

After his service was done with, he was recruited by the CIA. Unfortunately, he still had family members outside of the US which prevented him from getting the security clearances necessary to work for the CIA. He ended up getting a job with Naval Intelligence. He spent most of the 60's and 70's training dolphins and seals to alert the Navy of underwater mines. He spent 38 years there before retiring.

The person I am today was largely influenced by my grandfather. He was an avid fisherman, camper, competitive shooter, HAM radio operator, model airplane flyer, and motorcycle rider. He was there when I shot my first gun, took me on my first camping trip, took me on my first motorcycle ride, helped me catch my first fish, let me fly his RC airplanes, and let me pull the lever on the reloading machine when making his own .45 ACP ammo.

I'm sure I left out some of the amazing things he accomplished in his life, but I think you get the idea of why I looked up to him so much. Sorry for the long post and hopefully it doesn't sound like i rambled on forever. Now lets get out there and raise awareness for the issues men are facing today. If you aren't feeling "normal", GO TO THE DOCTOR!

Fun Fact, I only know of 9 people with my last name.

Great story, thanks for sharing!

So, your grandpa worked with the EOD Dolphins? He was THAT guy! Awesome!!! I've seen a few documentaries about those programs. Pretty neat stuff.

Fluent in how many languages? Lol, I guess human speech wasn't challenging enough for him anymore. I bet he could shave with a SR in his sleep... in the back of a C-130... and still get BBS in spite of mid-flight turbulence!

I don't have much memory of my grandpa, due to an erratic living situation after my parents split. Though I can't recall him being physically violent, there was a silver lining to the strokes he suffered near the end of his life. They had silenced him, and he was no longer able to spew vitriol towards my grandma. I'm not glad he had the strokes, I'm just glad she didn't have to suffer his unnecessary verbal abuse anymore .

I wish I could have met yours, Prodigy.

Signed in for another year....

http://mobro.co/jonathangaudet424

I see MJC has already raised a fistful of dollars.

I'm holding a couple of raffles on a SA wet-shaving forum and have already had a great response.

@MJC , Thank you, for the contribution