“Things Money Can’t Buy: Time. Happiness. Integrity. Love. Manners. Respect. Trust. Class. Common sense. Dignity.” ― Roy T. Bennett, inspirational author
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“You don’t have to get up,” someone told me during an introduction and handshake meeting last week.
“Are you kidding,” I laughed as I rose to my feet. “That’s the way my daddy trained me. I don’t know any other way.”
Good manners will never be down and out in a civilized society, we agreed at the boomers coffee klatch last week. But random acts of kindness and courtesy once commonly taught in every home are gowing scare in public places.
“It’s not as much of a thing as it used to be,” one personality-less employee in a local business told me last week. Guess they didn’t like my facetious “thank you” for noticing their overwhelming lack of customer service and manners.
All debates aside, the boomers coffee klatch also agreed on one thing. Courtesy and manners still matter. We all get one chance to make a first impression. Often, before we ever speak the first word.
“You always dress that way for work,” I recall a member of management asking one of the new guys on a job many years ago.
“Yeah,” the newbie stuttered,
“And you always address your supervisors and elders with, “Yeah? Where’s your manners?” Before the young man could dig himself any deeper, the manager offered advice I’ve never forgotten.
“If you want customers and colleagues to perceive you as a professional, you have to dress and act like a professional. No one gives you respect for free, you earn it by the way you present yourself and the way you treat others.”
Manners were important to my parents and grandparents. Something for which I have always been deeply grateful. Learning manners requires no textbook and very little intelligence. Just treat others like you would like to be treated.
“Manners make the man,” Mom used to say. “Real men are considerate of others, especially ladies.” My father made sure I understood that one well one day at the Perry’s 5¢ and 10¢ store in downtown Mount Pleasant where he was the manager. Quickly stepping up to hold the door for a lady behind us, he smiled and said, “Please pardon my rude son. I’ve tried to teach him some manners, but he seems to have forgotten that today.”
A big one with my grandmother was hats. “A gentleman always removes his hat indoors,” she reminded me often. “Take that cap off,” she informed me the first time. “It’s rude to wear a hat inside. And don’t ever sit down to eat with a cap or hat on your head.”
The second time, she wasn’t as subtle. She snatched the cap off my head, handed it to me, and asked, “What did I tell you about a gentleman and a hat indoors? People will think you were raised in a barn.”
My grandmother also clearly illustrated “Please” and “Thank you.” She bought a strawberry ice cream cone one afternoon at Lockett’s Drug Store soda fountain in downtown Pittsburg, Texas and handed it to me. Just as I was about to enjoy the first bite, she abruptly took it back.
“Thank you,” she said to the young man who had just scooped the delectable delight. She then took a bite of it and said, “You must not have appreciated it, I didn’t hear you thank anyone.”
After a most humble “thank you” to both her and the soda fountain attendant, she returned the ice cream cone to me … minus one bite. The price for missing my manners.
“What do you say when speaking to someone?” I remember Mom asking.
“Yes,” I responded.
“Yes … what?”
I soon learned that “Yes, ma’am” and “Yes, sir” were the only acceptable words for a mannerly answer. As were “No, ma’am” and “No, sir.”
“Manners are not important just because I say so,” Dad told me many times. “They are a measure of how you respect people. If you show others respect, they will respect you.”
Someone asked me about a fellow employee in a workplace not long ago, “Why doesn’t she respect me when I ask her for something?”
Recalling the words of the supervisor I always remembered and my father’s words, I said, “Could be the way you ask. No one gives you respect for free, you earn it only by giving it.”
True enough, money doesn’t buy respect or manners. But if it did, a lot of people these days are apparently broke.
—Leon Aldridge
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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche, the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.
© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.
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