Manners – A Lost Art?

Please. Thank you. Excuse me. Oh, the nice things that come to you as a result of just uttering these simple words. Have we Americans forgotten our manners? I’d like to say no, but unfortunately I believe many have.

I drove up to the mountains yesterday to do a little hiking. It was obvious that our area had been hermitized for several days as a result of all the rain that Hurricane Ida brought in, because there almost wasn’t a parking place to be found in the State Park.

When we finally did find a place, we had to squeeze the car in – the SUV to the left had overrode his space. The owner of the SUV to the right was still standing by his vehicle, which we had to get pretty close to. My boyfriend rolled his window down and said to the guy, “I’m going to move it over a little” to which the guy replied “Oh, you’re alright”.

We found out pretty quick how treacherous this hike was to become, being as how it eventually led up to a waterfall. Needless to say, the waterfall reward at the end made this one the most popular of all the trails.

Once the trail started getting kind of chancy, oftentimes we would have to wait for ‘oncoming traffic’ to make their way up, or down. Can you believe there was usually an ‘excuse me’ and/or ‘thank you’ involved? As well, I would say it when people would wait on or move for us. Sometimes we were winded, as other hikers were – but we all managed to keep our manners with the ‘excuse mes’ and ‘thank yous’.

It behooves me that people can be in the middle of a freaking forest and maintain their manners, and yet forget them when out in public, such as a restaurant, grocery store, etc.

Hmm. Manners. In the woods.

A habitant of the forest.