RRN Online Volume 26

December 07 '96

Volume 26

Elation & Deflation

A number of RRN readers let me know of their enjoyment of the story on the barbed wire fence in Carrollton, MS. I decided to share it, in abridged form, with the Greenwood Commonwealth, a newspaper with circulation in the Carrollton area. I mailed the article to the Commonwealth on a Monday afternoon, thinking that I might be contacted by the editor within a couple of days. After a nine-day wait, I called the editor and inquired if he intended to publish the story. He claimed that he had not received the article, so I faxed a copy to him, and I also sent a copy via Internet E-mail.

After two more days, I called and inquired about the article. "Yes, I received it and it is running today (Thursday, 11/21). It is a good article, and you are a good writer," commented Dave Kalich, the editor. I thanked him for the compliment, and his time. I also phoned a person I knew in Greenwood and asked her to save a couple of newspapers until I could pick them up on Friday.

Relating the events to Barbara on Thursday evening, she asked if the newspaper editor wanted to put me on staff. I told her the editor did not mention it, and I was not ready to quit my day job. I don’t need the pressure of a deadline, and I have no current aspirations to write for a newspaper.

It has never ceased to amaze me that someone always finds, within any periodical, something to which they are inclined to object. I do not subscribe to any magazines that do not publish letters or responses from readers. I certainly do not intend to suggest that publishing of letters is a prerequisite for my subscribing to a magazine. After all, there were a number of years in which the National Geographic Society did not publish letters from its readers. I remember the year they began the practice (figuratively speaking, so don’t ask for the exact year) and recall my unbelief at the criticisms by some of the Geographic’s readers.

I have been addicted to National Geographic since 1958, the year my uncle, Lamar Carter, gave me a gift subscription to the prestigious Society. Naively, I believed the Society incapable of scientific error or stirring heated emotions through controversial articles. I guess I must have looked at too many pictures and too few articles.

I suppose "universal acclaim" is an unrealistic goal for any publication or writer. I have heard the term tossed about over the years, without giving a lot of thought to the validity of the phrase. I do not wish to sound cynical, but I now believe there is nothing in this World, real or imagined, that can claim praise from everyone. That statement should stir a few scholarly types to think of an exception.

By no means, do I feel the RRN qualifies for exemption from criticism. However, I was shocked to hear that a recent article evoked the wrath of a reader. To illustrate, I have excerpted most of the offending paragraph that appeared 11/24, which states my family’s plans for Thanksgiving.

Sarah is more than a little excited about the happening. My children and grandchild are expected, along with Barbara’s mother. Normally Aunt Jo would be joining us, but the daughter of my deer-hunting brother has invited her to join their celebration. This is a departure from the usual, since James normally hunts, and his wife and children go to Okolona to be with Peggy’s family.

There was no intentional hint, on my part, of any grudge, malice or ill-will. The plans seem to be presented rather matter-of-factly even as I read it again. Sadly, I discovered, when filtered through the sieve of a different point of view, evil, almost sinister, motives surface.

These are the simple facts, some of which are not explicitly stated above: James is my brother. James hunts deer. James has a wife and two children, one daughter and one son. Lee, the son, is older, and Diana is the daughter. Peggy is the wife.

I did not send a copy of the newsletter to James, since I had decided to mail one to Aunt Jo. My logic being, Aunt Jo would send her copy next door to James. Aunt Jo enjoyed the story on my mother and asked Diana to take the newsletter out to her family’s house. When Diana, age 13, read the newsletter, she was furious with Uncle Wayne for downing her Daddy. "He didn’t even mention my name. He just called me the daughter of his deer-hunting brother. He’s jealous ‘cause Aunt Jo is not going over to Aunt Sarah Sue’s for Thanksgiving," she raged. No amount of persuasion on the part of Aunt Jo could diffuse her dissatisfaction with Uncle Wayne. It should be noted that little is known concerning how hard Aunt Jo tried to dissuade Diana from her interpretation of the newsletter. After hearing of Diana’s reaction, I was thankful I did not include the third page of the newsletter, which contained a short discourse concerning the encroachment of hunting time on family time during the Holidays.

(Portions Deleted)

I left the store feeling somewhat better about our brotherly relationship, but far from good about the strained family relationship. The moral might be stated, bad relationships, like fears, seldom improve unless openly confronted.

It's Your Chair

I will be so glad when I am old enough to recount the events of my childhood with greater detailed accuracy than current events. I don’t know enough about this phenomenon of memory to speculate when it will happen, but it will be my luck that it occurs when I am too old to type or see to type. I would really like to know when I learned to perform certain tasks. This would not include tasks like breast feeding, which is far too close to my time of birth for me to want to remember, rather social skills like how to hold a fork properly or to respond to any adult with Sir or Ma’am. The only exception to the latter would be if the adult was "colored", whereupon the title of respect might, at the discretion of the user, be omitted.

Lately... a relative term which could mean within the past couple of years, I have noticed there is quite a large segment of the population who never learned how to properly exit a dining table after completing the meal. Please don’t observe my table etiquette too closely; my wife is certain it is flawed. Nonetheless, someone in my distant past saw to it that I was bathed in the admonition to push the chair back to the table once I had completed a meal and prepared to leave the room.

I cannot recall if the purpose was to signal others that you had eaten all that you desired, thus making it safe for another to eat out of the bowl if everyone else was through. Perhaps it was a courtesy, allowing others around the table to navigate safely past your former seat or perhaps it lessened the after-dinner chores of Mom or whomever cleaned up. I really do not know the wisdom behind the action, but I practice it to this day and abhor the fact that so few other pilgrims follow suit.

Like you, I eat out much more frequently than I did twenty years ago. Have you noticed how many folks slide their chair back from the table when eating is finished, stand and walk away to pay for that which they consumed without ever making even a hint of intent to set the chair back to where it was when they arrived. I have visited parks where signs were posted that informed visitors to look around and enjoy the beauty, but to leave the area exactly as they found it. Are restaurants going to have to adopt a similar practice to alert patrons of this common courtesy, as it applies to moveable seating?

You cannot single out any one group of people and say, "Well. Just look at those rednecks" or "look at those (fill in the blank)." The syndrome is epidemic among all stereotypical groups from children to the aged. I eat in restaurants that range from Mom ‘n Pop style up to those fancy types that give you a separate plate just for your butter and make you feel really special by opening your napkin for you. I have been to business meetings/dinners among haves and have-nots, and neither you nor I can predict who will and who won’t push their chair back to the table as they leave.

What can you do? What difference can just one person make? I do not know what impact your actions or my actions may have on others, but you and I can set the example for others to follow. Apart from seeing that our immediate families practice this courtesy, you might try that which I do occasionally. Whenever everyone at your table leaves, remain at tableside an extra minute to slide or set back all the chairs. Sure, your friends may learn to leave the chore for you each time you dine together, but I believe the odds are your example will lead them to follow.

The following was my assignment in Sophomore Literature on Wednesday, December 04, 1957, to be recited Friday, December 06, 1957. It seems an appropriate close for this article.

Be the Best of Whatever You Are

Douglas Mallock

If you can’t be a pine on top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley - but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill
Be a bush if you can’t be a tree.
It you can’t be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can’t be a muskie then just be a bass -
But be the liveliest bass in the lake!
We can’t all be captains, we’ve go to be crew,
There’s something for all of us here.
There’s big work to do and there’s lesser work to do
And the task you must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway, then just be a trail
If you can’t be the sun be a star:
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail -
Be the best of whatever you are!

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