“this story starts with my grandfather… he comes from a really wealthy family.. really high up in the dutch east indies trading company.. theres a boat in the dutch indies trading company that was like named after my grandfather.. owned shiton of art .. its now in the reiks museum .. but the war happened .. world war 2.. and it was a very shocking experience for my grandfather. it terrorized his family his mom died and his dad married someone else..everything about the Netherlands just traumatized my grandfather.. he doesn’t even like the Netherlands. he doesn’t even like dutch he considers himself american even though he was dutch all growing up. So He kinda came from a very posh back ground but he wanted to run away from it. So in order to do that… his dad was going to pay for medical school anything he wanted to do… he wanted to go to farming school. cause he wanted to become a farmer so he could  go to the states or canada whichever one would take him. And at the time the states was accepting way to many immigrants at some point they cut them off right when my grandfather was applying to come to the states so he ended up going to Canada. So my grandfather is going to go work on a farm in Canada. and um.. he gets there.. and hes got.. he dresses for the… he takes like a year of agriculture school which is not really like a learning agriculture university its just literally like how to be a farmer.. you know like probably no one from his socio-economic status has ever been like I want to learn how to be a farmer.. but thats what he wanted to do so he does that goes for one year and then gets sent to Canada.. He arrives to Canada and.. he dressing for the part. so he’s wearing like a flannel shirt and overalls which he assumes is dressing for the part he has no idea. you cant research that on the internet or whatever…. He gets to Canada he gets a bus or whatever to the station.. takes the train.. and then he is just waiting at the train it’s just him. his accordion. and his duffel bag full of just clothes…. He comes and gets picked up by mr . muir.. no mr. hillicker.. Perse Hiliker. Perse Hilliker comes and picks him up.. drives him back to the farm doesn’t say a word to him he’s just like “alright get in your the worker lets go”. They go back to the farm and then that’s where he meets my grandma for the first time. Love at first sight all this stuff.. And then um.. He works for him for a little while like two weeks, and then Persie says they are going to go hunting and they invite Ralph my grandfather. and so… my grandfather is very exited that he is invited.. he’s brand new working on this farm, and he has a thing for my grandmother and now the Dad is inviting him to go hunting. But my grandma comes from a family where there is like 9 kids, like 6 dudes and three girls or something.. but theres 6 dudes going on this hunting trip and all of them have clearly hunted before… My Grandpa grew up in like downtown Amsterdam in like a nice.. his dad was a doctor and all this shit.. you know he’s never been hunting .. he’s like been rowing .. but he’s never been outdoors out doors.. So he thinks he should really practice.. At this point working like 10 hours a day on a farm. he decides hes going to wake up really early like 430 or 5 am and practice shooting for a little while before work… he doesn’t want to embarrass himself when he goes on this trip. So he wakes up really early.. I don’t even know how they probably had alarm clocks back then. So he wakes up really early  he goes to the gun rack and pulls out one of the Guns and he goes out and brings in the tripod thing that they set up or whatever. And he goes out to a lake and theres a bunch of ducks and he’s going to shoot one of these ducks. …like my grandpa is like… he comes across as a war hardened guy but he’s a really soft guy when he comes down to it.. He’ll like cry in a movie and then when you confront him about it he’ll be like “i have no idea what your talking about” and um.. So he starts feeling bad, he’s about to shoot this duck but its more important to him that he makes a good impression on his dad because he’s trying to get this girl. So he lines up the gun and he’s going to hit the duck and he pulls the trigger and he hits the duck but not a headshot.. its hard to get a headshot its got a little… and the duck is flapping around going crazy all the other ducks fly away.. and this duck is clearly suffering. And so my grandfather grabs the gun and runs for the duck..not like to get his catch.. but like he doesn’t know what to do theres like a suffering animal.. he’s never been through this before.. so he grabs the gun holds it by the barrel and tries to hit the duck in the head..right when he does, the gun hits the ground, it fires and he shoots a bullet that goes in the bottom of his ass and out the top of his ass cheek. ………interruption………It started out with my grandpa wanting to make a good impression now he’s clearly not going to make a good impression he shot himself in the ass.. so he goes back to the truck .. grabs clothes rags everything and stuffs them in his pants to stop the bleeding… he gets back to Persies house.. goes in his room wraps it up as best as he can with whatever he has and never told anyone including my grandmother for like 25 years.

Collector: Who told you this story?

Informant: My grandfather under pressure?

Collector: Who knows the story?

Informant: The story can be told to you from anyone in my family

Collector: Do you think you will tell this story to your kids?

Informant: Yea for sure

I guess in analysis what i take from this story is how culture specific a story can get. We may all belong to certain cultures but within that culture there is subgroups and and so on, the family and the family stories represent a really small culture subgroup in my opinion and this story is proof. this story is shared by all of tyler’s cousins aunts and uncles and one day his kids and hopefully so on. I now share in this story and feel as if i know my friend a bit better.