January 2011

THE CONSIDERATE GUEST

If a man who is smoking in the street sees the motor of a woman he knows stop beside him and he goes to speak to her, should he throw away his cigar or cigarette?

If the interview is to last only an instant, he might hold his cigar in his hand; if the lady stopped to talk for several minutes or if she invited him to drive with her, he would naturally throw it away; at the very least, he would offer to do so. A woman of his own age who did not mind smoking might beg him to keep his cigar.

Should we recognize our tradespeople or others who serve us when they are met on the street?

Why not, if we know them? If we are on pleasant conversational terms with the butcher, the baker, and candlestick maker in their shops, we should naturally recognize them in the street or anywhere.

OPENERS

Dear Miss Manners:

What do you consider a good conversation opener?

Gentle Reader:

Almost anything except “I’ve been on a wonderful journey of self-discovery lately, and I’d like to share it with you.”

AN OVERDUE WEDDING

Dear Miss Manners:

My niece is getting married next month in a long white dress after living with the man three years and having two children. Do you think this is proper?

Gentle Reader:

This event comes under a particular category of “Proper” known as “High time.” In this area, there is no time for quibbling over dresses or other accessories. Go and wish the couple joy. You cannot accuse them of rushing into matrimony without due consideration.

WHEN ONE HAS TOO WONDERFUL A TIME

Dear Miss Manners:

Thomas Eakins is now recognized as one of the greatest American painters, but in his own era his reputation was uncertain. He had only a single one-man show during his lifetime, and despite memorial exhibitions in New York and Philadelphia after his death in 1916 and his widow’s substantial gift of paintings to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1929, Eakins remained relatively obscure until Lloyd Goodrich published a groundbreaking monograph on him in 1933. Only in recent years have critics and scholars begun fully to appreciate the depth and complexity of his art and to probe the contradictory impulses that seem to have motivated his life and his work.

Look at this.” Fred Alien, the managing editor, was in my office, holding a piece of paper and clearly irritated. My first thought was that an error had slipped through the mesh of our fact-checking system and been instantly spotted—as they always are—by a reader. To my surprise, what he handed me was a press release from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers bearing the not especially inflammatory headline WIND-POWERED GRISTMILL LANDMARKED . But when I started reading it, I saw right away what had annoyed him.

“The wind-powered gristmill in Victoria, Texas, truly depicts a simpler time, when farmers relied on the only gristmill for miles around to turn their corn to flour. …” There it is again: a “simpler time”—the obdurate conviction that earlier generations had clearer choices, less-demanding vocations, and generally just a bit more time on their hands.

All of us have encountered surly check-out cashiers, come up against uncivil civil servants, and witnessed rude public behavior. The couple behind us who talk through the entire movie. The stranger who lets the shop door slam in our face. The driver who steals our parking space. We often hear—and voice—the complaint that bad behavior is on the rise, that chivalry is dead. But are Americans really less polite than ever? Are manners in perpetual decline from some golden age of civility? Are there, as etiquette advisers like Judith Martin (“Miss Manners”) have argued, eternal and unchanging rules for proper behavior?

John Kasson, who teaches American history at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, says not. His book Rudeness & Civility is a study of manners and etiquette from the first colonies to today. His findings challenge the conventional wisdom.

A GENTLEMAN’S BEHAVIOR IN THE STREET

Every man ought to know how to walk, and it is well to practice and acquire a proper gait. Don’t walk with a strut like a turkey-cock, nor stiffly as if you had a poker down your back, nor, on the other hand, swing from side to side, nor push on head first, dragging your limbs after you. Don’t swing your arms like a windmill, nor carry them stuck to your side like a trussed fowl. Wear your hat upright on your head, neither set back, nor drawn over the eyes, nor carried jauntily on one side.

BEHAVIOR AT DINNER

If possible, the knife should never be put in the mouth at all, and if at all, let the edge be turned outward.

Eat PEAS with a dessert spoon; and curry also. Tarts and puddings are to be eaten with a spoon .

On September 12 Charles Barras’s The Black Crook made its leggy, five-hour debut at Niblo’s Garden in New York City and became the country’s first big hit burlesque. “The scenery is magnificent; the ballet is beautiful,” explained the Tribune ’s critic, but “the drama is—rubbish.” Another writer noted the show’s “scenic glories and the unutterable stupidity.” What was spectacular and new about William Wheatley’s production was its use of one hundred female dancers wearing skin-colored silk tights and gotten up as lightly clad fairies suspended by wires. While some critics bemoaned the play’s length and vacuity, the public ate it up, and the ballet spectacle earned more than a million dollars in a sixteen-month run.

Joe DiMaggio’s hitting streak had died in July, and the pennant contest between the Yankees and Red Sox was effectively over in mid-August, but Boston’s Ted Williams took his pursuit of batting’s .400 mark to the final weekend in September.

Williams had been hitting .405 with a week to go, then had connected only once in seven appearances against the Washington Senators. After September 10 his average fell twelve points, to where dropping below the coveted .400 mark would be a matter of just a few outs. Joe Cronin, the Boston Red Sox manager, offered his star left fielder a chance to sit out the final three games, against the Philadelphia Athletics, and so preserve his average. But Williams—who often referred to himself as “Teddy Ballgame”—wouldn’t have it.

“You’ve got to admire the kid for being so courageous,” declared Cronin. The Kid went one-for-four in the first game, still technically leaving him at .400. He also refused to sit out the next day, a Sunday double-header that finished the season.

As part of Operation Prairie, the 3d Battalion, 4th Marines attacked North Vietnamese Army installations along Razorback Ridge in the Quang Tri province on September 22. It was the hardest fighting of the seven-week-old campaign. Helicopters assisted ground forces throughout the fighting, now and then bombing the jungle to clear the way for the Marines’ advance and resupplying the men each night to leave them free of extra gear as they searched the hills for the North Vietnamese Army. By early October North Vietnamese Army Division 324B had abandoned the fight and slipped back across the demilitarized zone into North Vietnam.