Growing up Under Communism – My Grandfather the Life Teacher

I spent many days with my grandfather as a small boy. He had a small farm in the foothills and my parents felt, it was a safe place for me to be during a war and food shortages. I was only five years old and grandfather put me to work. We would wake up at five in the morning, including my grandmother, and worked until the sun set, and stopped only because it was too dark.

My grandfather gave me assignments. When I finished, if I sat down to rest he would holler: Do something, anything, don’t just sit down and rest! Find something useful to do! Look around and you will find something! And I did, while developing resentful feelings, not towards my grandfather, but towards my parents for “deserting” me in a place I could not even play.

When I didn’t do something right, he would teach me and force me to do it over and over until I did it right. If I made a mistake, he would scold me in a way that I would not dare to repeat the same mistake twice. He never punished me, did not have to. His voice was sufficient.

I never saw him drank, and he never raised his voice with my grandmother. It took me many years to realize what a tremendous impact he had in preparing me for life – the difference between right and wrong, and most importantly respect for hard work.

My grandfather had a degree in horticulture. He worked for the government as a forest ranger. He saved his money, bought few parcel of land and became a small farmer. He built his brick farm house himself with a large barn to accommodate two cows and the necessary hay storage, right on the foothills of Carpatian Mountains, in Transylvania. The parcels of land were disconnected: Two were on flat land where he planted wheat, corn and potatoes. The others were between the hills, used for cattle feed and one on a hilly section were he planted hundreds of apple and cherry trees. He had two cows and a herd of sheep. This being a hilly area, there were section owned by the government he used for his cows and sheep to graze.

My story above is placed in 1947. I was six years old, when Romania was still free under a Monarchy and a parliamentary system of government.

By 1950, the communist system started showing its powers and intentions. The government confiscated my grandfather’s parcels and hired him as a manager and worker to do the same thing he had been doing before, except now he was on a salary and the harvest belonged to the government.

He was allowed to keep his cows, but not allowed to have the cows graze on a parcel of land near his house that previously belonged to him. Now the parcel was unattended and full of weeds. He took it all in stride and did his best with what was left. The government allowed him to keep his house. He kept working as before. He sold his cows to the government and converted the barn into a large room. Now his grand children live there and there is no farm anymore.

Presently, Tr Cojoc is retired in California and he is advising clients in financial matters, on how to preserve capital as well as high risk investment strategies such as trading foreign currency or FOREX.

You can find out more at     Financial Adviser