I’m at the bank. I’m standing in a line that is one hundred miles long. I’m in the rear. The line is not moving.
I would rather have open heart surgery administered by Howdy Doody than wait in line.
Through the doors, I see a woman, walking across the parking lot. I’m trotting toward the door to open it for her.
This is because I was raised by women. Polite behavior was beaten into me with hairbrushes and unabridged King James Bibles. I believe in opening doors for anyone you’d refer to as ma’am, miss, or Mama.
But someone beats me to the door.
A boy in line. He is twelve, thirteen maybe. He’s here with his mother. He swings it open.
“Thank you,” the woman says, grinning.
Two more women are strolling through the parking lot. The boy flies into action. He opens the door.
They thank him. They even call him “sir.”
He likes this.
Here comes another. She’s waltzing toward the door, talking on her phone. You ought to see the surprise on her face when the kid pulls the Open Sesame trick.
She giggles. “Aren’t you sweet?”
Yes, he is.
And I remember a time when most men were. “Gentleman,” my granddaddy would’ve called them. “Polite,” Mama would’ve called it.
I call it being considerate. And I believe in it.
Long ago, we had men who raced to the door to prove that their mothers had raised them right. They were men who wouldn’t use a four-letter word in the presence of long eyelashes, not even if you threatened them with soap operas.
But those days are evaporating. And I don’t like saying it, but the world has changed.
Even so, some of us still remember our Mama, reminding us to treat every girl, woman, and granny better than the Queen of England.
I asked the boy’s mother how her son became such a knight in…