Respect & Courtesy

Julie McGue

Author

There is a mood in this country that shocks and puzzles me. Respect and courtesy seem to be old fashioned, passé, something dropped off at Goodwill because it is no longer valued. Recently, I witnessed how respect and courtesy varied in two different cultures in regards to the elderly.

Every two weeks, I take my eighty-six year old mother to get her nails done. Mom is social. Getting her out of the senior living community where she lives is an event she looks forward to. She chats with the manicurist, shares pleasantries with the girls selling cosmetics, and clucks with the other clients over weather and local gossip. While Mom’s nails dry, she reads the glossy magazines next to her chair. For Mom, it’s the trifecta of forty minutes of pleasure: nails, conversation, and magazines. For me, it’s more complicated. Parking and getting a woman with new knees and an arthritic back in and out of the car can be a nightmare.

Whenever I tote my mother around, I hang the sanctioned handicapped placard on my rear view mirror. Most parking lots have a slew of handicapped spots, but in this little village of 18,000, there are only two at the corner by the salon. Lately, I’ve had as much luck nabbing one of those as I have finding a leprechaun with a pot of gold. Mom and I circle the block several times and I usually end up grabbing a thirty-minute spot whose meter I have to come back out to feed. Easing my mom out of my Tahoe comes next, followed by a war zone of curbs and crosswalks.

On one of these bimonthly outings, I had my mom by the elbow while she clutched her voluminous handbag in the other. Twenty feet from our destination, all we had to do was clear the crosswalk at the sleepy four way stop in the center of town. Because of the train tracks one block away, the limited parking situation, and the popular coffee shop at the corner, traffic often snarls. We were deep into the crosswalk when a black suburban cruised through the stop sign, and made a sharp left one foot behind us. Shrieking, my mother spilled her handbag, and would have tumbled had I not had a firm hold on her elbow. For a small town deep in suburbia the driver’s lack of courtesy offended Mom and me. We are still talking about it.

Several weeks ago, I was in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico to attend a writer’s conference. Recently registered, I had ventured out the front doors of the venue. My name badge flapped in the light breezes. Clutching my packet I paused to soak up the brilliant afternoon sun. Directly in front of me, an older woman stepped out into the cobblestone lane and signaled for a taxi. A cab hustled out of the taxi lane and pulled up gently next to the woman. Then something astounding happened. The cabbie parked, exited his taxi, cleared the rear bumper, and stopped at the rear passenger door.

Not only did the young cabbie hold the door open for the elderly lady, he settled her into the taxi, stowed her bag by her feet, and smiled. He made certain her flowing skirt was free of the doorjamb and then carefully shut the door. He shuffled around to the driver side and slid smoothly out into traffic. The respect with which the taxi driver handled his older customer was notable, his kindness seemed genuine, and the careful manner in which he drove impressed me.

Both these incidents highlight some serious questions.

When was the last time a cabbie smiled at a passenger in the US, helped them enter the vehicle, stow their bags, and enter traffic with care and caution? Where was the respect and courtesy towards my mother and me in the crosswalk by a fellow citizen of the US? Why do Mexicans revere the older population and treat them with honor? Why have we lost that set of values, honoring and respecting the elderly, in the US? Why have we let personal decency be drowned out by our own immediate needs?

I continue to wonder about this, and so should you.

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