Who inspires you when times are tough?
When ever things seem hard for me, I think of my great grandfather who I never met.
He played the fiddle very well, self taught couldnt read music.
In the early 1930s work was scarce, money for the unemployed workers was non existant and tough times for the poor, people were making soup from grass here in the uk.
My great grandfather would go busking with his fiddle to put food on the table, busking was only a step above begging in those days.
The thing is he would cycle on his fixed wheel bike to the outlying small towns around his home town of Ayr to avoid embarrassing the family and neighbours.
But the real story is that he fell out a tree as a small boy and broke his leg and in those days before anti-biotics his leg got infected and was removed.
So a one legged fiddler was cycling up to 30-40 miles a day up and down hills to put food on the table, now thats a man! I am thankfull to be of his blood and he is my hero.
Anyone else have a hero?
The Good Lord Above!
Absolutely, I receive all the inspiration needed for me everyday from my Lord aboveās word and love for me.
@swamptrash , Great example, your Great Grandfather set for everyone. Never give up and make things happen, when needed.
Jack Nicolus
Not only a Great Golfer but great example for all as, he served so many folks with needās
What a wonderful story Swampy! I agree that in those days our grandparents got on with life as best they could, without relying on the State and put bread on the tables . My great grandmother worked on the lace machines in Nottingham, making trimmings for the Royal family and other wealthy gentry. She worked in very cramped conditions with poor light, 12 hours per day 6 days a week. Despite this she found time to cook a hot pot lunch every Sunday for her family and my mother says she never heard her complain about her lot in life and always had a cuddle for her.
I too wish I had known her, my grandmother had the same indominitable spirit which was passed on to my mother.
The ladies in my family are my heroines, so I hope it is ok to include them in this thread which is really about men 
Well Kate, the woman in my family are made of strong stuff, the one legged fiddlers wife my great gran was some woman and remained active until her late 80s cooking and fussing over everyone she also gambled on the horses constantly until the very end 
The generation that lived through the 30s had a tough time mostly, men and woman, my lot anyway started work very young even the one legged ones and never stopped. I always liked to hears tales about them. 
It is wonderful to hear all your stories. My mother was my hero as she was always there for me. I still canāt comprehend how she endured everything and how much she did. And she did it with such wit and grace.
My son is my hero, as well. He is the most authentic person I know and he cares about everyone and everything. He is the essence of ālive and let liveā. He inspires me and champions me and like my mother he does it all with such wit and grace.
Swamptrash, thank you for posting. Your story reminds me of my paternal grandmother who, during the depression, would make rock soup. She would wash some rocks and place them in the pot and then throw in anything she could find - dandelions, mushrooms, wild garlic and herbs, etcetera. I guess the rocks were meant to impart minerals. Even with so little she would still gather in the children of the neighbourhood and feed them.
How fortunate we are to be so inspired.
My mother was my hero as well, she had five children by the age of 25, when I was 11, she knew there was a better life for us kids, she packed all us kids up in the car and drove away, leaving my abusive father standing alone on the ranch. We moved into a safe house ran by a police officer, times were tough, but she kept on, doing everything she could for us. One day she met a man, he fell in love with her day one, and later became my stepfather. He was a great man, taught me everything I needed to know about life, business and how to be a success, he loved all us kids as if we were his own. Sadly, my mother passed away 10 years later when I was 21, but not before she prepared all us kids to take on this world and all it has to offer.
She was kind, generous, funny, loving, a prankster, she would do things like put a device on the toilet seat that when you sat down it said āhey! I am working down hereā every one of us kids would swear they were her favorite, because she made us all feel like we were. My memories of her have made me a good father, husband, and grandfather to my own family.
There you go Kate, another woman hero, I am sure there are many.
Thank you @swamptrash for starting this topic, I hope someone is inspired by the strength of my mother and does the right thing for their children as she did.
Michael
Well jujube
Rock soup!, it kinds of makes sense for minerals but a hard way of getting them, wow. Maybe truth in old wives tales but Iām happier with the multi vitamins 
My granny also fed anyone who came through her door, even if they werenāt hungry, but soup was always available, hereās to the old ones, they understood what was important and it was soup 
And in homage and to there memory, Iām making a pot of chicken soup right now,
Mark
Interestingly enough, my sonās name is Michael and my husbandās name was Marc 
For me, the only real heroes are all the anonymous people who dedicate their lives to helping or saving others at the risk of their own livesā¦ So thank you to all the nurses during COVID, all the firefighters who, on a daily basis, come to you saving despite the danger and all the other professions which give rather than receive.
When I was a kid, my hero was Muhammed Ali, because he stood up for what he believed in. Now, I am my own hero, for reasons to be untold.
Heya, both my grandfathers were fiddlers. The one, son of a lobster fisherman, fiddled at dances to earn his college tuition (late 1920s), and the other was a merchant marine on a schooner (no, not the Bluenose).
I have had several heroic human beings I have admired throughout these first 60 years of life, and up until His death on 2/14/16, my Dad was the only hero that I interacted with personally. On His 18th birthday (2/17/42) his entry into the 2nd world war and eventual Savannah, GA (Hunter Field) home for a few yrs. He was asked to be a member of The 509th Composite Group & shipped to Wendover Field in Utah. There he took part in preparing and testing B-29ās for fuel consumption/max.distance that would be crucial for an upcoming mission he had no idea of any details, only that it was Classified enough that he wasnāt privy to the details as an Arial Engineer thatās only recently been promoted to Staff Sargent. But on an evening test flight sometime in the Spring of 1945 He and over 25 others(including the crew on board, ground personnel via radar, & subsequent pursuit aircraft & crews) experienced something that would likely change their lives. The B-29 Dad was in was engaged and followed by a gigantic UFO which āmirroredā their position as they were high above the desert that is now called Area 52 or Dugway Proving Grounds. After trying to āshakeā the thing without success, fighters were scrambled to intercept it from Wendover. When the fighters engaged the āvehicle of unknown originā , it disappeared from sight in a second as it accelerated and traveled straight up, until it was ājust a dotā and gone completely. Dad said it was estimated to be over 1,000 ft. long and shaped like a kite when seen from above or below but like a cigar in profile, and that it was a translucent, glowing, & opal-esque craft that seemed almost like it was āaliveā to Him. Signing papers that were meant to prohibit those involved with discussing what they had seen with anyone, ever. After a short Q&A in the ready room which was mostly questions and very few answers that werenāt much more than speculation, Dad didnāt hear any more about it until a few years after the war when a letter from the DOD said that what he had seen was a weather balloon. thatās a recollection that Dad only talked about a handful of times in my life, and has never been alluded to on any video or TV show that has had the UFO subject featured. Perhaps it was the mission and itās nuclear relevence that has it still classified, or maybe not.
Oh, youāre so right! Grammy always said āEven if youāre mad at each other, always kiss them goodbye, because they may never walk back through that door again.ā Also, be the first to say youāre sorry, donāt let pride get in the way. Words Iāve lived by. Your comment has evoked so many memories, of them all. Thank you. x
Ty for your kindness, my grandparents all had hard lifeās but overcame them. And left a legacy of common decency and manners on both sides of my family, lessons learned from example
Also the one legged fiddler continued to lead dance bands throughout his life, not purely for the love of music, but mostly to earn extra cash. His son my great uncle continued this although he played the saxophone got loads of tales about him.
Hereās to them
Your mother sounds like a very strong willed and good woman, I love tales where people triumph over adversity to achieve happiness. Hereās to your maw
Your dad sounds like he lived an interesting life, both my grandfathers served the whole war, 6 years in the desert and Italy then Germany, they hardly ever said a word about there experiences.
Hereās to your dad
My hero is Batman!