Complicated

Before dinner, my grandmother read the newspaper, tsk-tsking and complaining to no one in particular that the world was going to hell. Everything was wrong; nothing was the way it used to be."What do you think was so good about the good old days?" I asked in exasperation. But I heard how harsh my voice was and didn't like it. I said, "What do you miss, I mean?" While she thought, I waited to make my point: that everything was much better now than it used to be; I'd cite the civil rights and women's movements." The boy who lit the street lamps in the evening," she said, finally. "He carried a stool with him." I understood then -- it was like missing Nantucket -- and I put my hand on top of hers. It occured to me that everything was more complicated than I thought.

~ Melissa Bank, The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing