I was raised to believe that good manners were essential to my health and well-being. Common courtesies such as “please” and “thank you” were not only expected in my public behavior – they were demanded. Responses to questions from adults were to be answered with “yes sir” or “no sir” as opposed to “yep” or “nope.” And, long before the days of liberated women, I was expected to open doors for ladies. Under the watchful eyes and ears of my parents, failure to exhibit these good manners would usually result in severe detriment to my aforementioned health and well-being.
As a result of my early conditioning, I tried to instill these same manners into my sons and, for the most part, have been successful. Even though they were raised in a different era, I’m also quite pleased that most of my sons’ friends also displayed acceptable manners when they came to visit.
Quite possibly, the worst breach of good manners during my childhood was to ask for food or drink when visiting in a home other than my own. “I don’t care if you’re dying of thirst,” my mother would say, “you don’t ask for anything – you wait until it’s offered!” I always did, and that command was usually the last thing repeated when either of my boys would leave for the home of a friend.
I suppose years of being taught myself, then teaching good manners to my sons, was why I was so shocked when one time a surprise house guest, a nurse friend of my wife’s from Kansas City, took the liberty of opening our refrigerator door, asking, “You got anything in here to drink?”
I remember, wide-eyed, both my sons looked at me in stone-faced silence. More than a little surprised myself, I told him to help himself to a soda, as I retrieved a glass and some ice.
“What are all these pharmaceutical bottles?” he asked as he continued to survey the contents of the fridge while I poured him a cold drink. I explained to the nosy guest that the bottles contained vaccines and medication for the livestock. For years, I’ve promised my wife I would soon get one of those “little refrigerators” for the barn, but I never dreamed an outsider would be rude enough to discover the space they inhabited.
Since the visitor was to be an overnight guest while en route to a fishing tournament in Arkansas, I showed him where the sandwich makings were before I excused myself later that afternoon to attend a previously scheduled meeting. I also told him there was a fresh-baked pie on top of the stove and there was ice cream in the freezer. “I think there’s even some leftover homemade ice cream in a plastic container if you would rather have it,” I said as I walked out the door. With his lack of manners, I figured he would look through the contents anyway.
When I returned later that evening, I asked my wife’s friend if he had found enough to eat. “Yeah,” he replied, “but I gotta tell you, that’s the worst homemade ice cream I’ve ever eaten.”
Surprised by his comment and further lack of manners, I opened the freezer door to see why he had been dissatisfied. There, in the very front was my answer. The poorly mannered guest had topped his fresh apple pie with the contents of a plastic container I had collected from the cow that lost her newborn calf last winter – frozen colostrum milk.
Not having the heart (nor stomach) to explain, I simply apologized for the awkward taste. Knowing he would have had to dig to the very back of the freezer to find colostrum, I just let bad manners be its own reward.
Jerry Crownover farms in Lawrence County. He is a former professor of Agriculture Education at Missouri State University, and is an author and professional speaker. To contact Jerry, go to www.ozarksfn.com and click on 'Contact Us.'
