Courtesy, a bygone capability?

Just a small observation from this old curmudgeon, have we totally lost all semblance of courtesy? It sure seems that way in a lot of cases. Having reached the octogenarian status in my aging, I have become much more aware of things like this. Mainly, since I became partially disabled and need a cane when walking. But this growing lack of courtesy seems to be proliferating everywhere and more frequently. Seems that we as a people have become more discourteous and the trend appears to be growing across several generations of people. There was a time when if a person witnessed an elderly person having some sort of difficulty, they offered assistance, holding a door, carrying a package, reaching things on a higher shelf. Alas, things have truly been a’ changing.

Traffic Courtesy

For instance, ever have a driver fail to yield at a four way stop? Boy I sure have. Here in Alexandria, Virginia, especially in the historic old town, we have a lot of four way stop intersections. In fact, on my way from home to the primary care medical office, I encounter at least 6 four way intersections. Woah betide should I presume that simply because I entered the intersection first, that I might have the right of way. Far too often, I start only to have some inconsiderate boob in his six figure ego machine, run the stop sign with no hesitation at all. Of course then there are those who start/stop/start and it is their great desire to confuse the issue by giving you the go to hell look as they finally drive into and through that intersection.

Oh yeah, on the highway, what is it with some folks who think that is is perfectly fine to drive with their front end INCHES away from your rear bumper? Are they that confident that their mind reading ability will inform them that my stopping suddenly will give them plenty of time (nano seconds) to bring their 4000 pound steel deathtrap to a halt before they totally crush into my car? Don’t laugh, that has happened to me TWICE. Lucky for me, the situation happened on a city street and the speeds were considerably slower than on a highway. Hell, in one case I was coming from the barbershop to home, and was stopped at a traffic light (another car ahead of me), when I looked up in my rear view mirror to see one of those Mercedes G class SUVs not stopping. Hit me full on, push my bumper area into the trunk area, bowed my rear deck lid up so much that the open trunk sensor was not able to shut off. By the way? This was a new car, I had only purchased and took possession of that car less than a week earlier! Way to go Mercedes driver.

When the cop arrived, I assumed that the first thing to happen was the Mercedes driver would be given a ticket. Well that’s what used to happen back in the olden days. Rear end another car and you were automatically at fault and would receive a ticket for failure to maintain control. But no, the cop only asked if either of us were hurt and then if our vehicles were still mobile enough. Those answers were yes and he left! Of course we had already exchanged information so his insurance paid to have my NEW car repaired and a loaner car provided during the repair time. But she wasn’t a new car anymore, she had been damaged and REPAIRED! Took my new car experience and tossed it in the trash very fast.

Now how about when you are driving on the interstate highway and some asshole rides less than a foot off your rear end? Ever get concerned? What about when there is a lot of traffic in that section of highway? Still not concerned? Okaay, then there was two idiots behind the wheel at that time. If you can’t see the following car’s front end, they are too damn close and danger is ever present. Traffic often comes to a sudden stop on today’s interstate highways. OFTEN, well at least on the coastal state interstates. Although I have had traffic come to a dead stop in the middle of Nebraska!

So, I once observed a forum discussion about tapping your brake to make these knucklehead idiots back the hell off. Interestingly enough there were quite a few folks who were against that idea, saying it could cause an accident when the other driver swerves thinking you were actually stopping, OR especially in today’s America, the following driver gets pissed, and a road rage incident happens, quite often with a gun nut driving and shooting his/her nine mm semi-auto pistol at you, your car or your passengers if any! Okay, I saw their point and agree mightily with the second point, about the pistol and road rage. It happens far too often in today’s USA. My wife and I have a different point, when some idiot decides to ride our car’s rear, I guess attempting to intimidate us into driving faster, never mind the nine million cars ahead of us, we usually start slowing down, ever slower, until the fool behind us either gets the damn hint, or passes us and the danger is removed. OF course, I’m not stupid, that can also often cause a rabid idiot to enter the road rage state and God only knows where he would take that. But, one simply has to do something, because having experienced rear end collisions, they are NOT fun and can harm you by whiplash or other injurious incidents.

What about personal courtesy?

Okay this one is really getting in my craw now that I am one of the ELDERLY folks. Several years ago, I had a bad reaction to some medication and my vestibular dysfunction (ability to balance and remain upright) became more pronounced. I had a balance problem that became more pronounced, therefore the cane came into play to keep this old man upright and not falling down and injuring these old bones.

After it became obvious to me and my doctor that I was now truly impaired, we changed our vehicle license plate for one with the Handicapped symbol and I joined the elderly folks who parked in those special reserved spots. Now comes the first instance, in several trips, when I arrived at a merchant location I found that people who were NOT possessing a handicap tag or a license plate parking in those reserved handicapped spots and forcing those of us who were eligible for them to have to park elsewhere! Even noticed that with some of the grocery stores where they have special reserved spaces for Veterans and you see some young teen climbing out of their car after parking in those reserved spaces. Common courtesy folks, sure I am still sufficiently ambulatory that I can slowly, ever so slowly make my way from where I had to park to that store, but some teenager parking there simply because of a rude sense of self importance or elitism? However, I just shake my head sadly, and decide not to report the violation. Shouldn’t have to do that, though. Just the way it is in today’s America.

How about holding the door open (storefront, elevator, etc) when someone is trying to get there? Simple courtesy right? Not anymore. I do admit though that I have had several people hold the elevator door in our condo apartment building for me, especially when they see the cane, but even still some see this old man and that ingrained sense of courtesy arises when they hold that elevator door for us.

Worst so far has been holding a door for someone at a retail shop. Many times when I approach a Starbucks store for instance, there is someone much younger (of course most people are much younger than I) will also be headed for that door. In many cases those folks will simply open the door, walk through and allow it to close on our approach. I will say, however, that during our time in southeastern Virginia, I discovered many times that people will stop, open the door and hold it for you to enter. Some places and some people still remember the common courtesy of one individual to another. Simply a matter of respect! But, sadly this is not so much the rule, but the exception. What happened? Guess it is that our rules of etiquette have, like our education of the rules for drivers, has simply been cast aside in our new ME Focused society.

What happened to our sense of Country/Community?

Or Perhaps, it is more pervasive today as we become more insulated from our former American sense of community. Sadly, having lived in this nation and internationally for more years than I like to count, I unfortunately have observed the degradation of that earlier sense of community into our current schism of mistrust, blame, and hate. Can we return to those days of earlier comity? Sure would like to before my time on this earth is done. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly to not want the return of the women and minorities as second class citizens, or having those stupid “separate but equal” school systems, or the whites only water fountains, seats on the bus, separate sections of the movie theater and other idiotic attitudes that we as Americans held during those Jim Crow and earlier days. Come on, you know, all those subjects that the governors of places like Florida are banning from being discussed in our school classrooms. Hint, those governors who are pushing that racist crap are rabid right wing Christo-Fascist oriented! Pushing a strong EXCLUSION attitude into our grade schools, colleges and universities.

I don’t know what the answer is certainly. I know what I wish it would be, that our nations citizens would stop with the “culture war” bull crap and get back to being American citizens. Getting really tired of hearing folks yammer on about how the liberals are destroying the country, or the conservatives are trying to end our democratic republic, or if you don’t support this guy as President or this idiot at your Congress critter, you should pack up and leave. Crap on a cracker, haven’t heard that idiotic “America love it or leave it” rabid bull shit for several years, but I do know that it is still around and there are some folks who still keep that idiocy in their brain pan.

Perhaps it is because we have played idiotic games with our education system, cutting the funding for our elementary, middle and high school curriculum. No more civics, no more driver education, if it ain’t reading writing and arithmetic straight up, then the political dirtbags, idiot school board members, and some citizens have ranted, raved, and slashed budgets, so our kids no longer have those additional courses that I, and many of my peers were exposed to each school day/year.

I don’t know for sure, but from all indicators, I would expect that we no longer have courses like HomeEc, where kids could learn about household budgeting, upkeep, and management of a home. OR, I bet there is no more shop classes for students in high school, like carpentry, auto mechanics, metal work. All those things were there and available for the students back when I attended school. That is how I learned how to work on my car doing a tune up, changing the oil, knowing how to use diagnostic tools to identify mechanical problems. All in High School shop. Learned how to use wood, to refine it, shape it, sand it smooth and paint it into useable items like cabinets, bookshelves and other items. In HomeEc we were taught about using a check book, establishing and managing a home budget. In driver’s ed, we were taught about responsible driving, the dangers of inattention at the wheel, and the injury and death from speeding. All these things were accompanied/taught using film. Some frankly scared the hell out of us when they showed a teenage car wreck. BUT it also scared us straight and gave us a sense of the need for responsible operation of that 4,000 pounds of steel. Not anymore. Drivers are taught by private for profit operators who may or may not be certified and properly educated for responsible driving.

Corporate/College Direction

For the past several years, our societal focus has been strictly focused on college preparation. Nobody gives a damn about crafts training, plumbers, electricians, diesel mechanics, truck drivers. Nope they push students to become college oriented whether they are actually qualified for a college education or not. If one doesn’t go to college or university in today’s society, they are, in many instances, doomed to minimum wage jobs, lousy managers, wage theft, and working without access to health care! Buying a home, forget it for years until they scramble upward enough to earn a better salary, if possible.

Seems that is part and parcel of our current crappy societal environment. A certain segment of our society in this country today are the elite who have tons of ready money at their fingertips, are given the impressions their entire lives that they deserve this largess and the country is there to serve their every whim. Professor Reich recently published an essay in his blog that addressed a topic near and dear to my heart, that of, you get what you are worth. Nope, the Prof and I agree totally on this aspect. Take the the Walton family for instance. Old Sam Walton was a pretty smart feller, started a store in Arkansas, offered good products for a fair price and folks know he was a man of his word. THEN. Soon old Sam opened another store, same thing, though, then a third, fourth on and on, seemed everything old Sam touched turned to a successful venture. Then it got big. Sam didn’t have a tight hand on the reins anymore, and the CORPORATE world came into the Walton enterprise. Then it became WalMart and we know what happened from that point. But what about those kids of Sam’s? They became filthy rich, more money than they could ever spend in ten lifetimes, but were they worth that? Nope, they were BORN into that wealth.

No courtesy in the Walton family, I betcha!, simply this is mine and you stay out of my area! And don’t even try to tell me they got what they were worth. They inherited the hard work and business acumen of old Sam their dad and grand dad. They had big buck access their entire lives. So they did not get what they were worth, they got what old Sam and his peers worked their asses off to attain. Same with a majority of rich jerks in our society. Elon Musk! Think he got what he deserved? Not a damn whit. He came to this country with a bank account stuffed with millions from the hardscrabble work that the South African miner employees dug in his Daddy’s emerald mines. Musk inherited millions, his companies in this nation were purchased by Elon with those millions, think he hammered hard to create PayPal? Nope he bought his way into that company, just as he did with the Tesla. Tesla was the brainchild of Martin Eberhard, JB Straubel, Marc Tarpenning, Ian Wright. Elon became a founder when he INVESTED in the company using his daddy’s money. He became the head simply through funding. The company foundered with Musk and the US Government had to help bail them out with several millions to keep them afloat. All of his companies were founded based on the ideas, the technology or the established structure of existing companies or entrepreneurs. Howard Schultz is touted as the maven of the Starbucks coffee behemoth. But it was four young men, Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl, and Gordon Bowker who founded the coffee chain in 1971 at Seattle’s Pike Place. Shultz bought the guys out and after a trip overseas, decided to turn the coffee beans store into coffee cafe’s. So again, a wealthy person, bought an idea from its founders and using large funds resources expanded the organizations.

Typical of the majority of super wealthy folks, and those people who are elevated into the upper echelon of the corporate world. CEOs now earn over 360 times the income of their workers. Are they worth it? Not by a long shot, but try to get that thought across, nope, courtesy, concern, interest are all gone. Their focus is on their portfolios, their compensation package and their golden parachute exit plan. They give too shits about the people who work every week throughout they year making the products or performing the services that give those CEO/COO/CFO and board members the multiple million dollar wages. And they get squat for their efforts from the perspective of those numb-nuts in the corner offices.

Courtesy, common decency, concern for one’s fellow humans, simple honor and integrity of self simply is dying in our nation and sadly no body but us old farts seem to give a damn!