Manners and oldschool ways
When I was a kid, back in the 1950s, due to my parents’ merry-go-round of breaking up and making up, I lived off and on with my grandparents, Adrian and Miz Lena, in Middle Tennessee. At times, I felt like I was enrolled in a perpetual finishing school. Everything I said or did came with instructions.
At a very early age, I learned stuff from Miz Lena that is still with me. The “Sirs” and the “Ma’ams.” From the time I started speaking in sentences, I was constantly reminded that, when answering an adult, it was never just “Yes” or “No.” If I ever let a “Yeah” slip out, you’d think a bolt of lightning hit Miz Lena.
Grand Mom was of the opinion that “Please” and “Thank You” were words that should come from the heart. She said, “I can tell, by the sound of they’s voice whether they really mean it or they’s just sayin’ it.” I guess she had a point. Inflection is everything.
According to Miz Lena, the proper way to address anyone
required that you “stand up straight and look ‘em in the eye.”
She told me, “Son, ain’t nobody gonna have no respect fer somebody who hadn’t got no respect fer they selves. If yore all slumped over like a hobo and lookin’ down at the ground, they’ll just pass yuh on by. They’ll be thinkin’, ‘That poor little boy hadn’t got no chance in this world.’”
Miz Lena also taught me how to stand up straight. It works. Stand with your back to the wall. Lean back till your shoulder blades are flat to it. Step forward. That’s how you’re supposed to stand. To this day, I do this very simple exercise. Grand Mom’s warning still rings in my ears, “Looka here, they ain’t nothin’ good comes from slouchin’.”
Another thing constantly preached to me was being cordial and respectful toward others, especially grownups. Never pass by someone without smiling and saying hello.
This one is a little tricky. Things have changed. In today’s society, you need to pick the ones you say anything to. There’s a mess of crazies out there. You never know which side of the bed they woke up on. A polite nod works.
Nowadays, rather than a nod of recognition to passersby, everybody has a cellphone in their ear. It’s questionable, to me, if they really have someone on the line. Seems like all people, at all times, are on their cells.
I’ve wondered if they’re speaking to all kinds of people, one right after another, or just one person all day. I can’t think of more than a few human beings that I want or need to speak with more than a couple of times a week.
Growing up, I kinda went a little too far with the “being cordial” thing. I thought just saying hello was the starting point of good manners. Grand Mom would say, “Butch hadn’t never met a stranger.” They used to call me Butch. I’d strike up a conversation with adults in the grocery store, on the sidewalk or any other place grownups congregated. Whether they liked it or not, we talked for a while.
It got to be that Miz Lena told me to tone down being so friendly. She’d say, “Somebody’s gonna come along havin’ a bad day and tell yuh to mind yore own bizness.” I was confused. You’d think that adding a little more to a “hello” would be considered above and beyond just friendly.
It is and always has been a constant search in my life to find the happy medium.
I come from a long line of “car wavers.” Back in the day and even sometimes now, old-school Southerners wave to oncoming traffic. I remember being in the car, up in the front seat of my Uncle JT’s convertible, whizzing down a country road, hair blowing in the wind and Nashville twang blaring from the radio.
Every car or truck that was coming toward us got a wave from JT. Not one of those parade waves or one that runs from left to right and not one like Porter Wagoner used to do at the end of his TV show. It was a subtle wave.
JT kept his right hand gripped around the top of the steering wheel. As a vehicle approached, he’d hold onto the wheel with his thumb and raise his four fingers. A four-finger wave is sufficient to pass for Southern good manners. Almost always, the oncoming driver four-finger waved back.
I usually four-finger wave to oncoming traffic. I’m not sure if they wave back. There’s too much traffic for me to take my eyes off the road. Even if I were going 10 miles per hour, I probably wouldn’t see their wave. My eyes can’t see as well as they used to. Still, I wave, just in case they have better eyes than I. It feels like the right thing to do. Southern ways.
The 40 years that I lived in Los Angeles, zipping up and down hills and driving the bumper-to-bumper freeways, not once did they wave back. Not unless you count the one-finger wave. Sometimes, they stuck it out the window to make sure I saw it. I always one-finger waved right back at them.
When you sat at Miz Lena’s table, there was all kinds of stuff you needed to remember. My duty, as the oldest grandson, was to pull her chair back for her and help her get seated. Grand Mom would sit down and between the two of us, we’d get her pushed back in. She would say, “Thank you, Honey Baby.” I would say what she taught me, “You’re very welcome.”
My two younger brothers and I sat across the table from my grandparents. Grand Mom always sat on the outside chair. It made it easier for her to get up to get something from the stove. No telling how many times she got up. Almost always, everybody got second helpings. A request for more meant that you really liked it. It was considered a compliment to the cook.
Grand Mom used to say that I had a hollow leg. Mom said I was born hungry. As little as I was, there was always room in my belly for a little more.
Miz Lena used to tell me, “Looka here, when yore at somebody’s house havin supper with ‘em, don’t you be eatin’ like yore starvin’ and then askin’ fer more. They’s gonna think I’m not feedin’ yuh regular.” When I reminded her that asking for seconds was good manners, right back she said, “You wait fer them to offer seconds.” There was a lot for me to remember.
When it came to expressing her gratitude or appreciation, Grand Mom was old school. Anyone who did something for or gave something to her, always, without fail, received a handwritten note of thanks from her in the mail. She had little cards made up with her name at the top and purple iris flowers at the bottom. The envelopes matched the cards.
When I asked her why she didn’t just pick up the phone and call them, she told me, “Honey Baby, it’s just good manners. Anybody can make a phone call.” She explained that if someone went out of their way to bring you joy, then they were good people and deserved returned respect. One of the many of Miz Lena’s rules.
I like receiving letters and postcards. There’s nothing quite like the handwritten cursive word. Much more personable. I’m afraid pen-to-paper is on the extinct list. I guess the argument could be that you don’t have to chop down trees to send an email.
Miz Lena probably wrote an average of two or three personal notes a day. She’d have Clarence, a little black man who worked for her for years, run her letters down to the post office rather than just put them in her mailbox. She thought that the old fellow who delivered her mail was a drunk and that there was a good chance he’d lose her letters.
Grand Mom thought a bunch of people were drunks. If they didn’t walk, talk or, as she put it, act right, they were probably alcoholics.
She and her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Park, had had some words, and Grand Mom took her off the Christmas card list. Mrs. Park made the mistake of kiddingly saying something less than complimentary about my grandfather. Worse yet, about my grandmother’s husband. That was the end of the line.
Mrs. Park tried in vain to get back on Grand Mom’s good side. She was constantly sending invitations and little gifts up to the house. Miz Lena didn’t budge. Every time Mrs. Park sent something over, Grand Mom reciprocated by having her housekeeper, Elizabeth, pick up the phone, call Mrs. Park and tell her, “Thank you.”
Early on, I learned that good manners dictate that you watch what you say and how you say it. As Miz Lena used to preach to me, “Think before you speak, sayeth the Lord.”
Bill Stamps’ books, “Miz Lena” and “Southern Folks,” are available on Amazon. For signed copies, email bill_stamps@ aol.com.