When my were in school and had friends who were visiting great-grandparents in nursing homes (and in one instance great-great), I had to explain that my great-grandfather was a Civil War veteran, and that I'd only met my grandfather (who worked as a sharecropper alongside freed slaves and the children of freed slaves on my great-grandfather's farm) once. One of those children lived behind us when I was growing up, and if I'd paid better attention when helping him with his garden would have taught me how to plant by the moon and stars --- he did teach me how to gut and skin a squirrel.