Grandmother's stories

AS my children would say when they hear anything that is slightly short of incredible, "those are grandmother's stories".
Yes, there are quite a number of these granny's tales that have some iota of truth in them if we have the wisdom and patience to hear them right to the end. For example, in the old days, as they say, people don't take vehicles as often to places when they could just as easily walk.
Where's the fun in that? you may ask. Actually, walking turned out to be as therapeutic as it was healthy. Mothers, fathers and their children walk whenever the distance is not too great. It helps in generating conversations among family members, it builds stamina and it keeps the heart healthy.
Notice, these days people take the car even if their destination is just around the corner. Now why do they do it? Plainly, the modern generation (a large portion anyway) is just lazy. They complain about the sun, they complain about aching muscles and they claim there are muggers at every corner.
Then, middle-class folks tend to be thrifty. The simple reason is money is not meant to be spend recklessly. Your grandparents have fresh memories of what it was like to be short of money or putting food on the table because edibles were hard to come by when hard cash was in short supply.
In those days, there was no plastic cards or credit cards, as they call them these days. People only spend what they could affort and what they have in their pockets. To be caught in a financial jam means the bank can hold your house at ransom. Not a very nice thought but your grand-pappy knows the shameful consequences of that kind of predicament.
Your grandmother's tales also include the precious issue of holidays. Only the very rich or the filthy rich were members of the holiday club. Back in those days when bicycles were more common than cars and lorries, going on holiday could mean that it happens once or twice in your growing years.
Because sensible families don't make a big issue out of it, they don't really miss those holidays. These days, if a yuppie couple miss their twice-a-year vacation, they feel as if they have been deprived of a great privilege and their lives are going down the tube.
And people also make a big deal out of going to church on Sundays. Somehow, God was a much more personal thing. All those children, even if they were reluctant, were made to go to church and listen to those homilies which they had heard about 300 times before.
Parents say the "grace" before meals and somehow the family seemed grateful they have something to eat, and God played a big role in that. Fast forward to modern times. People eat whenever and wherever they choose and they thank nobody for it, even if the meal sponsor is sitting next to them.
They are grateful that somebody was generous enough to treat them to a meal. They certainly don't think God is behind the whole thing. Heck, they don't believe in God anymore.
Churches are places where old folks go to pray, usually for their children's and grandchildren's continued well being. Young adults and a growing number of youngsters feel that God is too far away and too foreign an entity that could be identified with.
Priests, pasters and Elders seem to be running out of spiritual responsibilities. Few people are interested in spiritual matters. These things, they happily conclude, belong to my grandfather's time. Who got time for God and heaven, earthly matters take up too much time, they remark.
Life-long marriages are a thing of the past these days, as indicated by the mounting number of divorces. Modern couples sign pre-nuptial agreements if one or both partners have much to lose in the eventuality of irreconciliable differences.
Your grandpappy as well as mine never or dare not entertain thoughts like this. Hell awaits them if they even thought about the prospect of marriage failure. It was not a joking matter. Nobody takes a marriage lightly.
If a couple quarrels, they settle it among themselves and not through their lawyers. If there was a misunderstanding, they let the tension dissipate before they resume talking again. Usually they just forget about who's more stubborn.
Those grandfather's stories held the family together even if they made children uncomfortable and daughter-in-laws unhappy. It was one of those olden day stuff. Nobody lives for himself alone. We are all one big family, as they say, and which they all believe.
What has happened to those grandfather's tales as we all grew up. Somewhere along the way, we thought we knew better, so we decided to form these rules for ourselves and our families. Are we happier then, than our forefathers? I doubt it.
We have merely made our lives more complicated and create new and easier ways to get out of unhappy marriages. Divorce lawyers make a lot of money and children become delinquents as a result of broken homes and the single parent syndrome.
Grandmother's stories, huh?! If only we had listened more and absorbed more, we wouldn't make such a big mess of our modern lives. We would not be greedier, nor more selfish. If only our grandmothers or grandfathers were still alive to give us a piece of their minds.
Only God knows we all need more of their home-grown wisdom.