Though I am too young to be considered a "boomer", I was brought up by boomers and that in turn means that certain things were instilled in me.
There used to be a time, when even small gestures were considered a sign of respect. I remember as a kid, my dad used to hate it if we wore a hat inside the house. It was more than just during the pledge of allegiance or the national anthem, if you were indoors, hats were not to be worn. If on the rare occasion it did slip by, heaven forbid that you made it to the dinner table with your hat still on. Eating with a hat on was even more egregious than just wearing it indoors.
I have a feeling people younger than me probably can't wrap their heads around this craziness that I speak of. Needless to say, wearing your hat in church or during prayer was an absolute no no. Yet, these days, I see it all the time when I happen to visit church.
Without turning this post into one long rant, I will admit that it drives me a bit crazy when I see stuff like that. It's not that I am morally opposed to it, but when something runs counter to those values (or maybe just rules) that were so deeply ingrained into me, it rubs me the wrong way.
I'll never do anything about it of course, people are free to do and live however they want. Plus, who's to say that my way is the right way. Perhaps my parents got it totally wrong doing things the way they did. I don't really think that is the case, but far be it from me to assume my way is the right way or the only way.
Trust me, my family wasn't isn't perfect. There are plenty of additional pieces of fundamental etiquette that I have come to learn in my fifteen plus years with @mrsbozz. It would seem that every family has different things they do to show respect. Some of them are pretty universal, but others are more specific to each family.
Perhaps that was the case with the hat thing.
There are several other things I remember from my younger years. Things we were taught in school, things that don't seem to be as big of a deal anymore as they were back then.
For example, when I was in school, we had to take actual lessons on how to ride a bicycle properly. Cyclists had to follow the rules of the road and obey pretty much all the same rules as an automobile. The one thing I never did quite get down was the hand signals for stopping and turning, but I digress.
Again, not to sound like the old man screaming "you kids get off my lawn", but people just ride wherever they want anymore. At least in the US. Perhaps we don't have a cycle culture like they do in Europe that folks aren't as mindful of those sorts of things. I've seen cyclists blow through stop signs and red lights like they aren't even there. Riding on the wrong side of the road is also a common occurrence. Plus, heaven forbid you get in an accident with one of them, no matter whether they were obeying the rules or not, you are totally guilty in the court of public opinion.
I had a kid ride in front of me across the sidewalk as I was turning into a business a while ago. He "thought he could beat me" according to his own words. He didn't. Thankfully I wasn't going fast enough for anything to happen, but he was definitely shook up. I'm actually a big shocked that I didn't end up being public enemy #1 on some Facebook page after that, but that's a whole other issue these days.
Finally, not to get political, but I also remember a time when we were taught about how to act if the President of the United States were to enter a room we were in. I came from a small town in the middle of nowhere. There was about a 1% chance that we would ever be in that situation, but we were taught it anyway.
Decorum instructed that you stand, if you had a hat on, you take it off, not to be weird, but basically the way you would treat a lady. Ever notice how cowboys in the movies take off their hat when a lady enters the room?
How many Trump supporters do you think take off their MAGA hats when he is in their presence. Honestly, he probably doesn't care. So why should we?
I mean, should we?
I often find myself looking at the state of the world and wondering where we went off the rails. Then again, maybe we are right on track and the things that seemed important to me aren't really that important.
In the grand scheme of things, does it matter if someone is wearing a hat? Am I really naive enough to think that them wearing a hat during prayer is going to keep them from getting to heaven (if you believe in that stuff). I certainly haven't seen any lightning bolts coming down smiting them.
But the question remains. Do people just not care? Were they just not taught the same as some of us? Or in the grand scheme of things do those things not really matter that much.
You can have a lot going on in your life and still be respectful.
It's not that hard really. Is it necessary? I'd like to think the world might be a little nicer place these days if we held onto some of those small signs of respect, but maybe I am wrong....
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