GatorBytes
Letitia Baldridge is Alive
By Ms. Gator Bytes
May 3, 2001, 18:44

Dear patient purveyors of perspicacious plentitude, thank you for your continued loyalty while we have been undergoing , yet again, the reinvention of self in God's Waiting Room. Judging from the sheer volume of concern generated from faithful followers of GatorBytes, we have been missed, and we THANK YOU!!



We recently read another article on this website on tradition and propriety as concerned the proper bedecking of oneself at the sacred marriage ceremony and the excruciatingly proper way to announce the event. We want to suggest that it all is simply a matter of old-fashioned "good manners" (God forfend). Going to a broader format, we suggest there is a fundamental lack of "good manners" in all aspects of life from the mundane to the spectacular. From the grocery store, to the corporate office, shopping at Wal-Mart, dinner at Taco Bell or the Country Club, stranger-peer-coworker interaction, and raising our children.



For perhaps once-in-a-lifetime events, there is no substitute for the tried and true according to documented proprieties . Multiple envelopes and proper forms of address and established type faces and engraved black on white or ivory, and proper alignment of coordinated postage may be a pain in the patootey, but carried to the letter of etiquette, it is elegant, proper, appreciated, and makes one's mother sleep well thinking she has fulfilled yet another parental obligation in bringing you up to be an outwardly "fine" person of character.



This is not to suggest that applying proper etiquette to the handling of one's wedding invitation will insure married bliss, but it is the first civilized step in presenting a good front. Here in God's Waiting Room, we have few occasions for wedding invitations. However, there are a lot of sympathy notes to write that need a civilized hand and that may be of more comfort and longer remembered than some weddings last.



Where would Hallmark be without events of every ilk to announce. Every nuance in life has its own specialty line of greeting. Traditional, alternative and Shoebox. Sappy and snappy. Tomes and one-liners. In my understanding of etiquette, Hallmark is just the Hamburger Helper of wishing-to-be-thoughtful but having writer's block. Hallmark is not complete without a few handwritten words from the sender, not to mention a signature with x's and o's.



And all that's before one gets to the Internet greetings (less expensive than Hallmark) for Aardvark's Day through Leprosy Day, SDT Condolences and Visions of Greatness. Let-us-leaf this rocky road.



But it's all about feelings, sensitivity, and "good manners." Life still needs to include a major dollop of "good manners." Whatever happened to them, "good manners," that is? Why do so few care? Who remembers them? Why should we care about them? Because! (Now there's an old-fashioned mother's reasoned answer.) We've ranted and raved and raged and commented on same in GatorBytes, but as we continue on the footholds of existence, we feel that people reach critical mass through ignorance of or a disregard for "good manners."



When Moby Dick was a guppy, I had an unfortunate experience in college, which, condensed, replays that I was madly in love with and pinned to a Sigma Nu (they had the most elegant "Ruby" fraternity pins) basketball player who was from the North Shore. He came home with me on the only weekend I ever came home. On return to campus, he announced that we were through because my parents' manners were so abominable that his parents would never accept this liaison. Unfortunately, I inherently knew this. And, of course, I didn't state the obvious that I, myself, was the epitome of demure propriety and social graces and that he was a shallow expletive deleted. But, I admit that I might have better spent some of my subsequent campus time on books other than etiquette, researching basic (and in my case, extreme) etiquette. I vowed that I and any potential offspring of mine would never be embarrassed through lack of protocol knowledge. (Getting drunk, wild, crazy and improper is another story.) But forevermore, a "lady in the living room."



When my son and only child (who was and is PERFECT in every way; well-educated, successful and with a marvelous family of his own) was about 10 years old (just after the "great divide" [read divorce]), I forced him into dinner out at a respectable restaurant once a week with "mother" (that's with an "o"). He learned very quickly to hold the door for me, speak to the hostess, take my coat, seat me at the table, order a cocktail for me, select and order our meals, light my cigarettes, calculate a generous tip and pay the bill. He HATED these nights out. However, I had one premise, which I reiterated as an unending refrain: When you are old enough to need these social skills, you will automatically do what is correct and appropriate by rote and never have to wait to see which fork someone else uses first. You will never be embarrassed because you don't know what to do. My own past coming to haunt me, you betcha.



It took a number of more years for favorable recognition of my efforts. In earlier years, we went through the scenario of "Dad says I don't have to have braces on my teeth," as I literally dragged him into the orthodontist's. Through a nominal introduction to wine, selection and approval. Downhill skiing lessons, swimming lessons, golf lessons, tennis lessons. Through, "I hate this, I hate you, and I'm not going to do this anymore." And then he realized (sometime in his sophomore year in college) that: he was an expert skier, he could swim, he could plan future business outings on the golf course, be a contender on the tennis court, reject a wine because of its cork, know to go first through a revolving door when on a date, follow behind a girl on an "up" escalator and in front of her on a "down" escalator, effortlessly practice "good manners" in most social settings. It segued into being comfortable in sexual encounters, knowing that Ralph Lauren outer accouterments were always an understatement of proper good taste, with CK-for- men underwear, and sensitive to the fact that a man undresses from the bottom up, with those argyles being the first to go. All of the aforementioned without having to run through a mental catalogue of what to do. He also realized that he was easily affable and well-liked, well-rounded, a master at Dungeons & Dragons and other esoteric mind sports, most subjects academic, with common sense, and a dynamite smile - all because the "good manners" were already there.



Everything comes back to "good manners." Nothing is more basic and intrinsic to our comfort zone. Basic "good manners" could alleviate a lot of stress and "rage." Of course, this is one senior citizen's and one Florida canine's opinion.



By the way, while at this moment diverted by the companion article on proper etiquette, we can't wait to share with you our new episodes of life once again in the fast lane. I have a new "frosting" on the cake position in an upscale setting, with a complimentary $10K country club membership, and a whiney Mikey over lack of daily companionship and the 85,000 acre nature preserve that surrounds my new work environs to which he has not yet been invited. But, I'm busy working out at the gym three evenings a week and entertaining myself on the treadmill with plots of politically correct vengeance on my poorly mannered, rude, insecure new coworkers.



Oh well, it's always something. TTFN

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