THE LOOK

In a recent Facebook thread I complained about men not removing their hats at funerals, etc. (see my BLOG article DECORUM). A former classmate and current Facebook friend replied:

"I'm frequently surprised at the number of discourtesies that show a lack of proper upbringing but about offenders seem clueless. It seems overly negative to blame them for their ignorance when it isn't their fault, but their parents did them no favors in failing to teach them how to behave. The hat thing may be cultural (the cowboys do not remove their hats indoors and Orthodox Jewish men wouldn't remove their yarmulkes to pray) but other conventional courtesies seem to be ignored more from ignorance than deliberate rudeness. Mom wouldn't have hit for not removing my hat when I should, but she would have given me THE LOOK that affected me more than a slap would have. Perhaps more of we older people should start giving the younger people THE LOOK when they inadvertently offend. We may be part of that village that is needed to raise a child."

I responded that, sadly, it was not just young men who were offenders as several of the men were wearing caps proclaiming their military service and were obviously from our generation.

I also told him that my mother also gave THE LOOK! I don't know if mothers nowadays give THE LOOK!

One of my nieces lived with us for five years. For some strange reason her father--my brother--had always thought that my husband was henpecked; he even called him "Henry Henpecked". Gerald always took the razzing with great aplomb because:

NUMBER ONE: he is a man with self awareness who knew that he was not henpecked.
NUMBER TWO: family harmony was very important to him. (have I mentioned before that the man has class?)

Once, when my brother and his wife were visiting our home, he said something to Gerald, addressing him as "Henry" and my niece said, "Boy, Dad, you'd never say that if you lived with them; all Uncle G has to do is give her THE LOOK and she shuts up right away!"

My brother rushed to Gerald, knelt and exclaimed, "Please, PLEASE, show me THE LOOK; I've been wanting to shut her up for years!"