This has been quite a week and I have encountered so many rude and just down right mean spirited people.

Sunday: My daughter took me out for a belated Mother's Day dinner at Red Lobster. It was quite a long wait so we had to stand. I have two good legs and I am very healthy so I don't mind having to stand while kids were sitting in all the "wait" seats. When an elderly couple (I would say in their mid 80's) came in the children continued to sit on the benches. I kept waiting for one of their parents to tell them to get up and let the elderly couple sit. Well, I couldn't take it any longer and I asked one of the boys (about 11) if he and his brother (about 9) would ask the elderly couple if they wanted to sit and give them their seats. You would have thought I had asked them to eat worms. Their eyes got real big and their mom and dad glared at me like I was a child molester or something. Our table was ready and I asked the girl to give it to the elderly couple since some people didn't have any manners. I had to go and stand outside because I could not stand in there and keep my mouth shut. I didn't want to embarrass myself or my daughter. (Eventhough it is the others who should have been embaressed.)

Monday - I was pulling into a gas station and a gas guzzler was trying to pull out and he was taking up the whole entrance. I had my turn signal on and waited for him to exit. This was a 4 lane so people could go around me. Three cars honked at me as they went around and one gave me the finger! What was I supposed to do - hit the other car?

Tuesday - I went to a graduation ceremony. It was in a building with several levels and a balcony. An elderly couple (I have a thing about old people) were debating if they could get up the steps to the balcony. I told them there was an elevator but it was a good walk away. Their son or relative of some sort (who HAD to be in his forties) said, "Well decide what you are going to do! Go sit in the lower level or whatever. I am going up to the balcony where the rest of the family is!", in a VERY hateful tone. Once again I had to walk away.

Wednesday - I had to go and pick up my grandkids from school. A little girl was trying to show her mother something she made at school. "Mommy look. Mommy look what I made for you! Mommy look!"
The mother said, "how many times do I have to tell you to shut up!?" I just wanted to cry from the look on her little face.

Thursday - I stopped in a bar with some friends. The bartender was killing herself running around trying to take care of everyone (she had a huge group arrive at once). Some guy walks in and waits about a minute then yells at her to get him a Bud. He didn't ask. He didn't wait his turn. He wasn't blind and could tell she was in the middle of something. He just demanded she wait on him now! She told him she would get to him as soon as she could. He walked out mad!

Has everyone lost their ability to be kind to others? To be patient? To have common courtesy?

as the song says: "ain't that america....."

in a generation of both parents working, they lose out teaching basic social skills to their kids. instead, it's "do what you have to do to get ahead of everyone else"...at whatever cost.

this is what we have bred.

This is what repuglicans have bred. Everyone of these things sound like my little cousins. My kids know I would beat the hell out of them if they made an old couple stand.

It is a sad world Sadie, but it's nice that there are still decent folks like yourself who see the rudeness and are demonstrating it. It is a societal problem and I think mga was more accurate on who, or what, is to blame. It's really wasn't the children's fault that they didn't relinquish their seats, but the parents who sat there and had never taught them to do so. Apparently the parents had never been taught this either, because do we not generally teach our own children what we were taught?

A farmer friend always said, people have gotten too far away from the soil. When we had small farms, everyone had jobs. People had to cooperate with each other to get harvesting done. We were in touch with the earth and each other.

Now we have huge 'learning factories' rather than local schools. Kids are more invested with peers than their families. If you don't get to them early, you have lost them.

We have stores where goods come from far countries, not shoes from the cobbler, clothing from nearby small factories, food from any and everywhere, not from local growers. I am not sure what we have gained, but I do know what we have lost.

I have to agree with my farmer friend. Our values have changed over the years, and not for the better.

Too many parents of today have no manners or social graces themselves, so they're certainly not going to pass something along to their children which they don't have, nor probably ever had. Ignorance tends to perpetuate itself, or it does in my community. To be different would require these people to change, and they're too lazy and comfortable within their own narrow little zones to do it, Sadie.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and offer up a little theory...I think the rudeness and arrogance of the President of the US, which are displayed for one and all to see almost every day on the msm, have caused a lot of the attitudes we see in public places in America today, both by adults and by children who live with the adults who support the Bushies.

It seems to me that this mass acceleration of sheer hatefulness and disdain for fellow human beings began about 2001, right along with that stupid "Bring it on" speech. Of course, even Bush can't be blamed for it all, but I still think he and his cronies' "I, me, my, mine" attitudes have infected the small minds of the perpetually ignorant like a rampant virus. They identify with Bush! They're too stupid to realize that Bush would not give them air if they were in jugs, yet they continue to emulate and worship him.

I hope your daughter was proud of your stance and the fact that you spoke up for the elderly couple. Cheers for you, Sadie.

Catherine

Thanks Catherine. I think you are absolutely right. Sometimes you can tell who is a Bush lover without ever saying a word. They emulate him. It is a sad day when humanity does not look out for one another. They would rather run over the weak to get to the top.

Welcome to George Bush's amerika... those people you described are more than likely his brain dead followers...

all we, the civilized of this once great nation, can do is keep on keeping on...

you go girl!!!

I'm proud of you...