Manners

While we were visiting back home, we spent some time with my mom's parents. For as long as I've been alive their names have been Mema and Popa. They even introduce themselves to anyone having to do with their grand kids as "Mema and Popa".

My generation has much to learn about manners from Mema's and Popa's generation. And not just "yes ma'am", "no ma'am", and "thank you, sir". In an age where sarcasm and taunts are considered funny and witty, it is refreshing to engage in a conversation sprinkled with a good dose of tact.

Tact is something I learned about at an early age. I know this is hard for you to imagine, but when I was younger, I was a talker. I liked to talk. A lot. And as a precocious 3 year old, I am sure I announced, rather loudly, just a time or two, things that should not be said aloud. Things like how wrinkly that lady's face is, and how fat that man looks, and such.

I remember that from a very early age I was taught how to communicate without hurting some one's feelings. How to be honest without putting someone down. It's something everyone needs to know, and I am grateful to my family for teaching me how to think things in my head and not let them come out of my mouth.

While we were visiting with my Mema and Popa, they were telling us about how their church is trying to sell their current building. The congregation was so excited because they thought that the school district was going to buy it and add on to the high school campus that is just across the street. But, disappointingly, the deal fell through. The district claimed that since it was on the opposite side of the street that it wouldn't do them any good. Popa couldn't understand this because just next door to the church and across the street from the high school was the district's "school for the...well, the...ornery kids".

Delinquents? Kids with one foot in jail and one foot out? Kids that are way past sending to detention? Kids that have been kicked out of every other school? No, the "ornery" ones.

I have so much to learn about tact.