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Manners matter  I don't know about you, but I was raised to be a polite person, and well- equipped with an overly stacked repertoire of good manners, I don't mind at all using Please and Thank You abundantly. My dad's scorn would still reach me across the big pond if he got the word that I was not courteous. Voicing these two golden key words Please and Thanks should never be a big deal but a natural feature of all those who would like to be looked at as civilized and compassionate human beings. Besides, these two little words often work wonders and create a positive sensation in both you and your addressee. Good manners is something I really miss here quite a bit especially among today's youth. Here a little anecdote. As entertainers my significant other and I went to a birthday gig at a VFW hall a couple of weeks ago. While I was sitting at the bar, I was watching a whole bunch of kids run around and interact with one another. A kid approximately 12 or 13 approached the bar and asked me for the bar tender's name. I responded saying that I didn't know which was a lie, but somehow I could tell what was going to happen next. "Hey you!" The boy yelled across the counter. I leaned over and said to him: " How about asking, Sir can I please have another soda?" The kid gave me that blank stare of a fossiled bull frog. After what seemed a minute or two, he nodded in a rather defeated and intimidated manner. I encouraged him again this time in a softer voice. "You'll be fine. Just give it a try." The boy stammered what I had just suggested and was apparently quite taken by surprise at the old bar tender's joyful reaction. I could not let him off the hook yet and asked him teasingly. "And did it hurt to be polite?" I am pretty sure, I gave this young fellow something to think about as he walked away slurping his Dr. Pepper's. Due to my profession as a teacher I am used to dealing with whimsical and mouthy kids and teenagers. Believe me, a lot of those obnoxious little bastards with huge attitudes are wild brats in my country too, but manners almost all of them have, or at least they recollect them in certain situations. Here time and time again I witness young people in masses, so to speak, whose manners clearly appear to have gone missing in action provided they ever existed. But then just look at those kids' parents! If not them, who else should teach all those enfants terribles good manners?
Right their teachers should do this job. Implement a course called Courtesy into the basic curriculum, and pound some manners into these little blown- up egos long before they reach adolescence. This way they would fairly smartly turn their families around and evolve into compassionate, considerate and courteous adults passing along this wisdom completely naturally. Manners -good ones- do matter to make a difference.

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