The Catskill Chronicle

By Janet Waterston

“You don’t have to run around and open the car door for me,” I remember telling Dan, a friend from my college English class. “Are you a lesbian?” he responded.

It was the 1970’s, and the women’s liberation movement had paved the way for all my female friends to believe nothing stood in the way of our success. All five of us sharing an apartment went on to grad school: two to become medical doctors; one to get her Ph.D. in medical research; and two of us became social workers. We could do anything we wanted, and we began by informing the males we knew that we were self-sufficient.

“Am I a lesbian?” I said incredulously. How did self-sufficiency turn into a question of my sexual orientation? I tried explaining to Dan that I wasn’t opposed to his opening or holding a door for me; I just didn’t expect it. “If I get to the car first, I could open the door for you,” I explained. Now it was Dan’s turn to look incredulous.

Thirty-something years later I sometimes think wistfully of the manners that were once de rigueur. How many times do I enter or exit a door as the person in front of me lets it slam in my face? Or I hold it open for the next person who doesn’t even bother to mumble a thank you. “You’re welcome,” I sometimes say into the air. On rare occasions, a person will turn around, surprise written on his or her face and say, “Oh, thank you.” Ah ha! I want to crow. So you do know the concept of thank you.

Is everyone so lost in thought or busy speaking into a cell phone that he doesn’t notice when a thank you would be appropriate? Or do people think saying thank you is passé?

“Thank you,” I say to the cashier handing me my change. “No problem,” she responds.

“Thank you,” I say when the waiter refills my water glass. “No problem,” he says.

No problem! When did “no problem” replace “you’re welcome” or “my pleasure?” Do people really believe that “no problem” suggests a desire to be of service? To me, it says, “Well, this really isn’t my thing, but I guess it isn’t actually a problem.”

And how about when you’re driving? My dad taught me to be a courteous driver. That meant signaling a car in ahead of me and waving my own thanks if I was allowed in. I can’t remember the last time someone waved thanks from another automobile. More exasperating are the drivers who pull onto the shoulder and then cut in at the last moment as if the shoulder was placed there just for this individual who doesn’t have the time to wait in traffic like the rest of us.

I have a theory that the way people drive reflects their attitude toward manners. Unless one only drives locally, driving provides a certain anonymity. If I’m tooling along on the highway and someone cuts me off, I’ll probably never see that person again. I don’t know him and he doesn’t know me. I suppose that anonymity means we don’t owe each other polite consideration that we reserve for those we see on a regular basis.

But isn’t it possible that the lack of manners contributes to our isolation and sense of anonymity? I seem to recall that, at one time, as one reached the cashier at the supermarket, there was an exchange of hellos. This still happens in small towns where the shopper and person at the register may attend the same church or have children in the same class or, at the least, will see each other week after week. In New York City, where there may be a perception that one is part of a faceless mass, shoppers engage in cell phone calls as if the whole world was one big telephone booth for their convenience. They reach the register and continue talking about whom they saw over the weekend or what they plan to make for dinner. As a result, the person at the register doesn’t look up from the items on the conveyer belt and, half the time, is carrying on a lively exchange with the cashier in the next aisle.

Where my sister works, a small family-run establishment, the employees won’t offer assistance until the phone caller stops talking into the air and acknowledges them. As a result, the store enjoys a loyal clientele whose preferences are remembered and whose dogs receive a snack of fresh pasta each time they visit. Some of the customers even stop by when they don’t need anything. “Just wanted you to know we’re going out of town on vacation,” one might say and the unspoken message is, “I know you’d wonder if I didn’t show up for my usual Saturday purchase.”

Back in the days when I argued with Dan about what constitutes good manners, I remember learning that men accompanying women are supposed to walk on the side further from the building and closer to the street. The rationale? Once upon a time, people tossed their trash from their windows. The projectile was more likely to fall away from the building, thus the man gallantly took the hit. Happily, garbage is no longer tossed from apartment windows, and we don’t have to follow this antiquated ritual. Now we have people who drop their refuse under their subway seat or toss it out a car window onto the side of the road. The other day, the subway car door opened, and the man sitting next to me pitched his empty potato chip bag onto the platform. “Is that what your mother taught you?” I wanted to ask, but of course, my mother taught me not to engage with the crazies on the subway, so I sat silent and fuming.

Not long after my conversation with Dan, I took a walk with a new-found friend who hailed from a small town in Nova Scotia. She offered me a piece of gum and dropped her wrapper onto the sidewalk. I stopped and picked it up and pointed to a garbage receptacle up ahead. “Do you do that in Canada?” I asked. “There’s so much litter in New York, I didn’t think it mattered,” she told me, “But I see it matters to you.”

Until that conversation, Stella saw New York as a big, cold city in which we were all somewhat invisible to each other. My words connected her to me and to the city I called home. In South Africa, people greet each other by saying “sawu bona,” which literally means, “I see you,” and maybe that’s the point of manners. If we acknowledge each other, we have an obligation to be polite, to be considerate. Manners do matter, and they matter to me whether I know you or we are just passing each other by in an anonymous moment. “Sawu bona.”