Country Savvy

Not to steal someone else’s thunder, but on Twitter, an interesting thought was expressed.  The thought based around how the President is addressed.  My take is that if he is not addressed as President Obama, then there is a lack of respect for the position.  Whether or not you respect the man is immaterial.  However, when there is loss of respect for the person in the Presidency, then when the surname is used it is meant to show no respect.  When the given name is used, it is familiarity, which is also a disrespect as I was raised.  Unless a person gives you permission to call them by their given name, then it should not be used.

Maybe this is a sign of the times, are the young people of today taught to use Mr or Mrs, Aunt or Uncle, etc?  I was taught to call older people by their address (even thought I probably got away without using it with people who were close to me).  But for people I was not close to, we would call them Mr. ** or Mrs ***.  Good way to get your butt spanked was to show disrespect of your elders.  When I was a Marine, you always used a title.  Not an option, even if they gave you permission to use their given name after hours.  Even today, I use an address for people I don’t know, until they tell me to use something else.  I have neighbors who call me Mr Edwards regardless of whether or not I tell them to call me Monte.  I respect their use of the term and know that it is their way for expressing respect in the way they were raised.  I have a step-granddaughter who I have known all her life who calls me Monte.  She has several grandparents, so this was confusing to her.  She ask me if she could call me Monte instead of grandpa.  We talked about it, she was uncomfortable with grandpa when she had others also.  I told her to call me by my first name.  Her sisters call me grandpa.  This is not disrespect, but an agreement between us.

With what is considered appropriate, then the old rules of etiquette should apply since they were designed around respect.  I hope we all use them appropriately.

God bless and keep you.

The other day, I was reading a comment on Twitter, which said “I am bored”.  I responded to it with “bored is an expression of youth”.  Maybe this is a knee jerk reaction that was caused by having grandchildren.  Children of today do not take initiative to find something of interest to occupy their time.  They have to be led to an activity.  At my house, this means that I find them some work to do.  This usually cures the boredom forever.

But as I look back to my youth, I cannot ever recall being bored.  There was just too many things to do.  We did not have TV, no ipod, nor a portable radio and no cell phones.  But we could go anywhere in town and had a river to explore. We had horses and cows, pigs and chickens, so there was always work to do.  I could hunt, fish or go find a friend to play with.  We had lots of freedom, I could hitch a ride on a cattle truck and some times be gone for a couple days, all this from the time I was 4 or 5 years old.  Bored, no, not really.

When I was 15, I spent the summer with my Grandparents in the hill country of Texas.  I learned a valuable lesson while I was there.  A little background on them is necessary to understand the lesson.  They were well into their 60’s, cut cedar post for a living, and lived in an old 20 ft travel trailer (and I mean old).  No TV, a radio that was only turned on for news or a baseball game, no air conditioning, no toilet or shower. There was, however, a large mesquite tree to sit under. When we were not out in the cedar brakes, then most of our time was spend under that tree.  We would read, sharpen our axe and chain saw or take care of things that needed done.  Now at this point, for a teenager, I could say that I should have been bored in the evenings, but this is the lesson I learned.  Daydreaming.  My Grandfather could set, smoke a roll-your-own cigarette and daydream for hours without ever being bothered by the fact that he was not being entertained.  He never called it daydreaming, but you could see that he always had something on his mind as he sit there.  He worked hard physically and when he rested, it was a rest of peace.  I learned quickly that there is a time in you day that you need to just sit and do nothing.  As you sit, daydreams fill your head to keep you occupied. Daydreams fill the space that others would call boredom, but for daydreams, just sitting in a chair would be boring without other activity.

I know that times have changed, that pressures of the fast pace we live in almost require constant involvement.  But there is still a place for the relaxation that comes from daydreaming.  When the pressures of daily living get to be too much, stop, sit and enjoy a daydream, live in another world for a few minutes.  Boredom is created by the lack of constant activity which we have come to think necessary.  Channeling that lack of activity into time for relaxing and daydreaming is what is learned with age.  To my way of thinking, the ability to cope, to handle situations and to be creative are all a direct result of daydreaming.

Never think in terms of being bored, think in terms that now you have time to relax and daydream, write your own book in your head, live a few minutes in a different world, it makes this one so much better.