BOO FOR BOOING

The Curmudgeon is back!  She’s been gone for a while, though I could have trotted her out for my last blog on manners. She’s ready to give her opinion on the current trend to make Halloween that much more frenetic by “Boo”-ing.  Boo for Booing. In my most recent letter to my dear correspondent in Canada I told her of that week’s encounters with Booing:

-----Speaking of candy – eye candy and otherwise - Have the Canadians picked up the custom of “Booing”? At night someone rings your doorbell and runs away, leaving a bag of candy and a note telling you to make two copies of the note and the picture of a ghost, and pass it on to two more Boo-ees, along with bags of goodies for them. Whew! I don’t know who started this, but I think it should be stopped.  My daughter-in-law and the kids got Booed last Saturday while we were there. She suspected who Booed them and couldn’t Boo them back and couldn’t think of any two others to Boo in the neighborhood (not many households with kids there). She’d have to find two bags to pass on and some candy to fill them, and make copies, etc. She was a bit exasperated at that point, but the kids were excited. Just what they needed: more candy!

Then one night last week we got Booed here. What a pain! They don’t allow Trick or Treating here at SCCL, so I don’t have any supply of candy or other goodies. I recieved a bag-full of M&M snack bags, a Reesse’s Pieces, and one mint tea bag – strange! I don’t know what my daughter-in-law did about it, but I stopped it right there. Like a chain letter, I don’t pass such things on. Instead I just ate the candy! (Burp!) It might be fun for the kids – and I suspect this was started by the candy companies to drum up more business – but here in Sun City it is almost an imposition. From the looks of the bag I got it seems like the Booer had to scrounge up something to pass along. Many of us seniors don’t go in for such sweets – at least not the kind of things kids usually like. Last week I did have a coupon from Lindt for a free (free: my favorite word!) bag of their new Truffles – at $6.99 a bag! That is not for the kiddies. -----

Turns out that, just as I did, my daughter-in-law decided enough was enough, and didn’t pass on the Boo. It would have been fun for the girls to sneak up and ring the bells, but they can have other fun other ways. She is not a Martha Stewart Mama, all organized to the teeth and so busy she gets everything done elegantly.  If gals like that are not a myth, they’re few and far between.  She’s an every-day, loving Mama who has a lot on her plate and little inclination to go off on tangents imposed from the outside.  

Actually, I can see a sort of Booing here at SCCL.  Perhaps I’d call it “Gifting”. I remember when I was just a kid, maybe eight or so, and my Grandmother was writing out a birthday card to her Secret Pal. They even had greeting cards especially for Secret Pals. Do they have them now? I always thought that was a nice idea. So today, if someone knew that a neighbor or friend had a birthday coming up, or was recovering from an illness, or was just in need of some cheering, I could see leaving a Secret Gift. How about a gift bag of things like a small supply of herbal tea, some trial size toiletries, a colorful pair of socks, a box of Walker’s shortbread? You know the person so you should know what they like.  Add a cheerful card and Voila!  Just hang it on their doorknob.  There’d be no instructions to pass on the gift – though talking up the idea would be nice.  Mmmm!  One never knows, do one?

BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT

As most of you realize, I live in a Sun City.  The development is still under construction, and so the builder, and therefore the HOA, is very particular about what is published in the community magazine and on the community website.  Because of this, one of my intrepid neighbors created a Yahoo group to be the unofficial forum for airing our grievances – whatever form or turn they may take. (Sometimes the builder and the HOA even listen to what we say!) I am grateful for the forum because I have often posted on it and aired grievances or opinions of my own, and I’ve come to be even more grateful to it for giving me several ideas for my curmudgeonly essays.

Have you ever noticed that many old people think that because of their years of ‘experience’ they are always right?  Many are ready to jump to judgment with only the slightest bit of information. One recent group opinion exchange – I can’t call it a real discussion - concerned an eye-witness account of a driver who made a right-turn-on-red to head south from our development and then, once on the main road, made a U-turn and got the long green light to head north. Outraged, folks immediately pegged the driver as an inconsiderate, impatient speeder who just wanted to get ahead. And yes, it was an unwise, unsafe manoeuver,  and yes, they may well be right that it was just a ploy to get ahead, but did anyone ever try to guess what might have been going on in that car to justify such a dumb move?

“Mert, you dumb cluck where in the Sam Hill do you think we’re goin’?”

“You said to the bank Maud.”

“Mert, you dumb cluck, I meant Founders, not Fifth Third! Turn around!”

And so Mert, the dumb cluck, instinctively made the instant U-turn.

Most of the time it’s good we can’t read each other’s minds, but in this case, if this was the case, it would have been very helpful.  Really, it seems to me that it was more of a dumb move than a sly one.  You can usually tell the speeders from the dumb clucks almost by the body language of the car. Too often I see someone pull a stupid move and I mutter “Idiot” or “I-D-Ote” or the proverbial AH – and not just the initials. But I’ve pulled a few stupid driving moves myself, and I hope the witnesses were a bit more kind.

I try not to be a Pollyanna, but this leads me to ask my fellow elders to be a bit more forgiving, not jump to judgment, and try to see the other side of a situation. Instead of getting annoyed and going off on a tangent it will be better for our innards if, in a similar situation, we give the other guy the benefit of the doubt and try to see the amusing side of things. Some day that dumb cluck could be one of ‘us’.

SCCL NATIVES ARE GETTING RESTLESS

(With apologies to any of my regular readers who are not SCCL homeowners.)

Active Adult communities are a rare breed.  Having such a community with an HOA makes it even rarer – and scarier.  ‘Active Adults’ is a euphemism for ‘Seniors’.  Seniors, by virtue of their accumulation of years, have become, in my opinion, either wise or cantankerous. (With a curmudgeon here or there who is, I hope, a bit of both.) We’ve all got strong opinions.

The Sun City Carolina Lakes active adults are getting restless. It’s been over six years since the first homeowners moved in, and in those six years employees of the builder, Pulte Homes, have constituted the Board of the Home Owners Association.  When the first homeowners signed on here they agreed and signed on many dotted lines to allow that to happen, thinking, in those days of rapid home sales, that the community would be built out in about five years.  We all know that didn’t happen. Along the way we even allowed the builder to add to the number of houses to be built. Home sales slumped and the reverberations of that were felt nationwide. So it now looks like the builder will call the shots for at least another five years.

We could start wearing t-shits like this.

Not that the burdens here, namely the rules and regulations, are getting too outlandish – not like it was for our country’s founding fathers – but the phrase “taxation without representation” springs to mind.  We’ve been dutifully paying our association dues for months and years on end, and we’ve still no say in what happens here.  Not that we’d change much – though I’m sure there are several wish lists out there – but of late we’re beginning to sense a much too paternal attitude toward the homeowners. Let me simplify that: we feel, I feel, we’re being treated like children.

I’d love to know what the builder thinks a homeowner-directed HOA board would enact that would jeopardize home sales. Would we do away with those only symbolic electronic gates at some – only some – of our entrances?  Would we put in perennials instead of the costly annuals changed each season? Would we curtail the parade of construction vehicles on our too narrow streets? Maybe so. Ultimately, were I them, I’d be thinking it was time to turn things over to the homeowners lest prospective buyers, who might get a chance to question folks who live here, find out just how the place is really run. 

It’s time for the tail to stop wagging the dog.

HOUSEWORK

I hate dust. I dusted once – why is it dusty again?  I know, I know – it’s just a rhetorical question.  I hate dusting.  To be truthful, I hate housework.  You’d never know it if you took a quick look at my house – it is almost always neat and picked up.  Few people believe me when I tell them that’s because I’m lazy. I don’t want to have a big pick-up-and-straighten job to do so I neaten as I go. But the dust does accumulate.  Don’t come here wearing your white gloves, otherwise I’ll make you use them to do the dusting.

Spruce pollen cloud

I didn’t have to think much about dust for about a quarter of a century. We lived about twenty miles from the nearest city in upstate New York, out in the clean air of the country where the dust didn’t accumulate very quickly. Well, I must admit that during pollen season in the middle of the woods it could be a bit (a bit?) messy. And it didn’t come all at once: maple, oak, beech, evergreens – they took their turns. Brush past a spruce and it would explode with pollen. The mess stayed mostly outdoors on the porch and patio furniture.  A good hosing took care of it.

Here at SCCL I’m starting to think there are little dust elves sprinkling the stuff around when I sleep.  It isn’t as bad now as when they were building new houses around us, but it almost seems as though I could dust every day. It also seems as though I am less and less inclined to do any housecleaning at all.

On one recent sun-shiny day the angle was just right for the light to reflect off the floor into some of the neglected corners, and on to some of the kitchen cabinets – egad! I hate that kind of sunlight almost as must as I hate dust.  Well, I embarrassed myself into getting out the floor mop and the cleaning spray and sponges and I tackled the job: not just the mess so blatantly lit for me, but the whole floor and all the cabinet fronts. Counter tops too while I was at it. I did draw the line at washing the walls and pulling apart and cleaning the appliances. I mean enough is enough.  I do realize that I felt soooo much better for having done the job – but no one was there for me to brag to. Ah, well. I’ll get my reward somewhere later on in life – I hope!

Just thinking about how my mother and her mother kept house makes me ache all over.  My mother’s mother’s house shone from top to bottom. It will suffice to tell you just that she washed all the walls in her house at least twice a year. Though, like her mother, she did take apart and wash her refrigerator every Thursday, which I think excesive, my mother must have thought her mother's wall washing was the excessive thing. Most of Mom's walls were wallpapered, and the painted walls in the kitchen and bathrooms got washed perhaps once a year, and when I got older sometimes they were washed by me! 

I’ve lowered my standards even further. I take after my other grandmother: I’m lazier. That gal was one of the original liberated women: her house was, as they say, “Clean enough to be healthy, dirty enough to be happy.”  She had places to go, people to see, and go and see she did. 

And so do I! 

Amen to that!

ARE YOU STUFED YET?

        Do you walk into your house and feel like you’re walking into Fibber McGee’s closet?   Do you hear George Carlin (yes, the old Hippy Dippy Weatherman!) talking about “stuff”? He complained: “my stuff has stuff”.  Is your home getting stuffed?   Did you move every last thing you owned to SCCL?

        Peter Walsh, the ‘Organizational Expert’ you may have seen on the Learning Channel or Oprah, calls it “memory clutter” - it can interfere with the enjoyment of our lives and our homes.   We began our monstrous collections when we were very, very young.  We collected things because we liked them, because someone special gave them to us, or because we just could.   Along the way we forgot to how to drop what we no longer needed or what was threatening to overwhelm us.  We just hate to part with furniture or electronics or old birthday cards.  There’s always that sentimental, rarely practical,  reason that stays our hand from getting rid of stuff. These days you can find oodles of organizational hints.  What we seniors need is not organization for our stuff but elimination of a good lot of it.  I’m here to motivate you to make clearance your next project. 

        When we were in the process of moving to Sun City I came upon a saying that went something like “when the furniture heaves off your life you will love the deliverance.”   Well I must say I did delight in the deliverance: less stuff to pack, to move, to find space for in the new house, to clean, to maintain.   First I checked with the kids.  Lots of nice things from Christmas treasures to silverware found new homes away from ours.  I read about a gal who put it to her children like this: “Don’t be concerned, I’m doing just fine, but I’m writing my will.  What do you want of what I’ve got.  Better yet, come on over and take it now!”   Unless it’s your false teeth or eye glasses, what can you loose? Let them ask for what they’d like now - you can always say ‘no‘, but the best thing would be ‘yes’.

But sometimes something's
gotta give!

       Books? My books had books.  I was moving from a house where my husband had built in all the bookcases and storage I could ever need - built in, not moveable! Now the Stephentown Memorial Library has the majority of my books. I was told that many were sold to aid the fund for the new wing, and a quite few were chosen to be added to the shelves.  Made me happy to know I could leave something of value there.

       Living in over a half a mile on a dirt road, and that road off another road infrequently traveled, I saw no point in having a garage sale for much of the stuff that was left.   After all, who would want this stuff if I didn’t want it?  Well, they might, but I didn’t want to bother having a sale. Boxes and boxes of stuff found their way to the Salvation Army.  Boxes of craft supplies and fabrics went to two young teachers of my acquaintance.   What have you got that you no longer use or want and can box up and donate?   Keep good track of some of the better stuff you donate because there’s a nice level of tax deductibility to much of this. 

       What I do still have are pictures of my stuff.  Originally, the photos were taken for household insurance inventory.  They proved to be a treasure.  I’ve got pictorial records of many of the items I’d collected over the years, of the ways in which I changed the décor of the house depending on what curtains or quilts or crafts I’d made, and, to me, the most treasured: pictures of my books.   Most of the books I’d kept had been read two or three times.  I’d always felt that just looking at the title on the spine of a favored book brought the whole book back in an instant.  Now I can look at the pictures and get that same feeling.  If I really need to read it again there’s always the library nearby.

        It might not be easy to peddle your unwanted stuff on the street corners of Sun city, and you might want to get rid of that stuff before the next community tag sale. Let’s face it: after the tag sale you’d  still have leftover stuff to give away.  You might think of selling your stuff on eBay.  I did that once: we sold my husband’s charter collection of Fine Woodworking Magazines.  It was a pain to have to be available on-line to answer possible questions from potential buyers, and when we did get a buyer we had to find boxes, pack up the collection, schlep it all to the post office, etc. 

        So, think of Google and these on-line or local resources while you are de-stuffing your house and your life:

             Legal web sites - for retention schedules for personal records.  Many of us are overwhelmed with paper records we no longer need.  Be sure to shred the discards! 

             Manufacturers web sites - for owners’ manuals for your electronics, tools, and appliances. Who give house room to more unnecessary paper?               

             Goodwill Industries, The Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity, National Furniture Bank - for organizations who will be happy to have your used furniture, clothing, appliances,  what-have-you?  Many Goodwill depots for your more portable discards are right nearby in Waxhaw and Fort Mill, to name two.  Many organizations will arrange pick-ups. 

             The Del Webb library or our own lending library at the Lake House - for books, CD’s, VCR tapes and DVD’s. 

    

       See that?  Don’t you feel better already, now that you’ve begun just by giving a bit of thought to paring down your stuff?  So, where will you start?  Don’t just sit there - go do it!

TEMPTATION AND THE NEW YEAR

Yesterday would have been the 100^th birthday of the well-loved author and humorist Sam Levenson.  It is also two days until we begin a new year, and one of Levenson’s sayings is appropriate for the season: “Lead us not into temptation. Just tell us where it is; we’ll find it.” Do you make New Year’s resolutions?  Have you thought about them yet?  They have a lot to do with temptation and the resistance to it.              

I’ve known few people who actually kept their New Year’s resolutions. Have you known any? Not that my halo is on too tight – I’ve never kept any other resolutions – but, along with my husband who did it too, I gave up smoking over thirty years ago. Oh, I was tempted more than once to start again, but something kept me from back sliding. (Oscar Wilde once said “The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it,” but he was an extreme example of too much giving in.)  Our resolution to stop smoking was a wise one. Our health is probably better for it, we probably smell nicer to the world, and just think of all the money we’ve saved over the years.

Though many of us don’t make any these days, I suppose it’s not a bad idea to make New Year’s resolutions. If we are tempted and we give into it, at least we can say we tried. As seniors we’ve probably got so many new years past, and relative few new years ahead, that it’s probably a case of “been there, done that”. If we haven’t given up the smoking or the drinking, or haven’t lost the excess weight, it will take a major health crisis, not the New Year, to shake us out of our habits.

I’m telling myself that I’ve gotten this far in life, so from now on I’d like, cliché though it may be, quality over quantity.  I know, I know: I’d probably have more of both if I mended some of my ways, but I’m so set in them it will take that major health crisis to jolt me.  I’ll let you know if it happens.

MY GERM THEORY

"Is this bacteria I see before me?"
 Louis Pasteur - not!

       

December is Hand-washing Awareness Month, and I have my own Germ Theory: aside from the really germy places and things in this world, we’re all better off exchanging germs and becoming immune to them.  We can’t escape germs. We’ve got to deal with them according to their threat potential. *

       

I sigh when I see a shopper sanitize the shopping cart handle at the super market, then go blithely on and touch all the items in the store.  She’s got her own germs on her hands - I didn’t see her sanitize them - and will spread them around the store. She’ll pick up the donations of others, and then she’ll bring them home to her pantry. 

       

Once upon a plane trip, I saw an unaccompanied youngster enjoy every bite of her bagged lunch. Then, dutiful little girl, she got out the sanitizer and de-germed her hands. Wrong way ‘round child!

       

The little girl aside, I sometimes think that these sanitizing souls are assiduous in their endeavors only when they are in a place where, consciously or not, they think that they might be seen and judged.  It is certain that once a bit of internally-applied alcohol takes effect, no one washes their hands while circulating at a cocktail party - although the rule for hors d’oeuvres is ”you touch it, you eat it”. Just think of all the hands you might shake, all the germs you might attract.  Do you care? Of course not: it’s a party!  

I’m not advocating the complete abandonment of sanitizing hands. It’s flu season, thus the main reason for this month’s observance. Sanitizing hands is de rigueur in many medical offices, especially those where you sign in using a palm scanner. This is logical. What better place to catch a bug than in a medical venue - some hospitals are notorious. The last time my husband was in the hospital, I was pleased to observe the regular use of the contents of the ubiquitous sanitizer dispensers by the doctors and staff there.

As I did my early-morning water walking in the pool, I look over and can see them in the gym: those fastidious folks who carefully sanitize the equipment handles before they even begin to work out. Turns out that this is the wise thing to do because the truth is that gyms, with all the sweat and moisture there, have become some of the germiest places around - and they’re not just ordinary germs: Fungi to cause things like athlete‘s foot, viruses for colds and flu, and really nasty bacteria like MRSA. Just push open the door to exit the gym and there are those germs awaiting you.

GYM GERMS ARE NASTY

       

What I am advocating is heightened awareness and heightened combat with those really germy places and things: gyms, hospitals, rest rooms, packaged meats, kids’ diapers or runny noses - you know where and what. I am advocating a bit less paranoia, a bit less of the Howard Hughes hazmat mentality, and a bit more common sense elsewhere. Yes, be conscious of where you are and what you might touch with those germy hands.

The best advice is to remember your Mom’s words: “keep your fingers out of your mouth”, “don’t rub your eyes”, “wash your hands after you go potty”, or “dinner’s ready - go wash your hands. ”   You know the drill.

       

                                                       

  * January 2012 - I was just made aware of this excellent article: The 10 Dirtiest Places in Your Home.   Full of common sense and good advice, it is an excellent tutorial. You can find it at   http://www.onlinecertificateprograms.org/blog/2012/the-10-dirtiest-places-in-your-home/   Go read it and heed it - You know the drill!

A CURMUDGEONLY OBSERVATION

‘fI Were King of the Forest…

    …well, I’d never be king of the forest, but ‘fI had some more influence than I do, I’d take the Sun City Carolina Lakes HOA Board to task for not allowing solar panels within the community, South Carolina law not yet requiring they be allowed notwithstanding. This is from the latest HOA Board of Directors meeting (unapproved) minutes:  Discussion was held on whether to allow solar panels within the community if a request should be submitted through the modification committee.  The Design Guidelines deny the panels and there is no legislation within SC that required approval of solar panels at this time.  A motion was made and seconded and voted unanimously not to change the Design Guidelines in regards to solar panels.

Of course, I was not privy to the entire discussion or the thinking behind it, but I can guess that the main reason was that the solar panels might not look too elegant on the community roofs, and prospective buyers might think them a detriment to the area. (There’s no accounting for that kind of thinking, but it does exist.) Fate forfend that SCCL should look at all environmentally friendly. The board being composed of Pulte employees, their vision and version carry the day for now.
I must acknowledge that the Design Guidelines do allow for ground mounted solar panels in the "Private Area", but this option is difficult where sunward position of the house or the small size of the yard would prohibit installation. You could put panels on your patio if is gets the sun, but you'd have little room left out there.

Never mind the meek: the smart will inherit the earth, the boy- and girl-scout types will inherit the earth.  Come the day that a major solar flare aimed right at the earth knocks out all our mod cons, those with a bit of forethought will come out smiling.  Unless the power powers-that-be can detect the flare early enough to shut down world systems, the grids will fry.  Envied will be those who’ve got backup on water and food, or who’ve got suitcase-size solar chargers for their cell phones, iPods, PC’s, batteries, and radios – that is if there’s a worldwide web or a phone system working.  The man who has a generator and the gas to run it will be the man to know.  Were solar panels allowed here at SCCL, the house with them on the roof would be the place to go.  I’m not holding my breath on that one.   

 

IT AIN'T OVER 'TIL THE FAT LADY SINGS...

  ...not this fat lady, but read on about    A NIGHT AT THE OPERA 
             

No, we’re not talking Marx Brothers, we’re talking Puccini, Verdi, Bizet, Wagner – well, not too much Wagner, that’s a bit heavy.  We don’t usually go ‘round humming a tune from Tannhäuser, although the second act is a singing contest.    I remember long-ago Saturday afternoons, listening to Milton Cross present the live broadcast of that day’s production of the Metropolitan Opera.  I think I liked his voice as well as those of the singers.  This month marks the opening of the new season at the Metropolitan Opera. Wouldn’t it be lovely to be there?

Did you know that over these last decades many of our favorite popular tunes have been politely borrowed from the world of opera?   And many of opera’s popular tunes were originally borrowed from what were then popular tunes.  The music goes round and round.

For years, British Airways has used the music of the “Flower Song” from Delibes’s “Lakmé” as their theme. Nissan’s uses the “Ride of the Valkyries” from “Die Walküre”, yes, by Wagner.  The music for “Stranger in Paradise” and other songs in “Kismet” came from Borodin’s opera “Prince Igor”. For Jackie Wilson’s “Night” the music came from Saint-Saëns’s “Samson and Delilah”. Don’t be put off by some of the long titles of opera pieces: they’re usually just the first few words of the song.  That piece from “Samson and Delilah” is titled “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” and means “My heart opens at your voice.” You needn’t remember the title – just appreciate the music. There are many more examples, but then this article would be a list of songs, not an appreciation of opera.

My husband doesn’t want to sit through or even hear an entire opera, but his favorite listening is collections of popular opera favorites. He's worn out the LP of Pavarotti's Greatest Hits, and we were lucky to replace it with a CD.  I love the opera, and can sit through one just to hear the music and watch the production, the same as with a Broadway show. 

“Porgy and Bess” is the best of both. I must admit that I’m happier seeing a show because the dialogue is spoken. Dialog is usually sung in opera, and it’s generally in a language I don’t understand. It helps to know the story line. Though they can be distracting, today there are subtitles on TV opera airings, and surtitles running on a box over the stage for the theater-goers.  At the Met they even offer “Met Titles”, electronic devices mounted on the seat in front to show you the translations. 

Though there are several comic operas, most operas are dramas and their music can be very moving.  The opera “Norma”, for example, is no “My Fair Lady”. Norma has a secret lover by whom she has two children that, in her despair, she is about to kill. What with one thing and another, Norma dies with her lover on a flaming pyre. I’ve never seen that staged. Not too light, is it? Yet one piece from it, “Casta diva,” was one of the most popular tunes of its day

One of our neighbors doesn’t like all those screaming ladies in the opera, and I can’t blame him much. Out of context and just heard in snatches, it can be quite unappealing. Today, many opera newbies would consider “Casta diva” a screamer, and I’d think them right if I didn’t appreciate the power in a voice like that of Maria Callas.  Hearing a recording of her singing that aria, or “Suicidio” from “La Gioconda”, will either give you chills or send you, screaming yourself, right out of the building. 

Larger-than-life characters with wonderful voices, like that of Callas, sustained opera. In recent decades, singers like Luciano Pavarotti helped to popularize it.  He was about as colorful and large a character as was ever seen in the world of opera. Thanks to him and others like Plácido Domingo, or Beverly Sills, who brought acting to opera, there is a wider audience today. New listeners have come to appreciate the great range of opera music from light, lyrical pieces like “The Bell Song” from “Lakmé”, one of my favorites, to beautiful duets and stirring pieces like the “Anvil Chorus” from “Il Trovatore”. 

            

From other disciplines, people like movie producer and director Franco Zeffirelli have brought modern staging, design, and costuming to update many of the classic operas. Opera, once found outside of the great cities only on the radio, has blossomed in productions all over the country.  It’s regularly offered on television and it can be seen live, in HD, in hundreds of movie theaters.  Near us, a series of eleven works, live from the Metropolitan Opera, will be shown in Charlotte at the Stonecrest 22 at Piper Glen. You can check it all on line at metoperafamily.org. 

Try it, you might just like it.


-

IT'S NICE TO BE NICE

We recently had a visit from a lovely nurse who is with the Homecare of Lancaster. She couldn’t believe that we were from New York. Evidently, in the course of her work here in several of our Sun City Carolina Lakes homes, she has run into some very unpleasant people from above the Mason-Dixon Line.  Not everyone from the north has given her a hard, rude time, and some from the south could also use a lesson or two in manners, but we surprised her by being so nice. SCCL people I ask you: what is with that?     

This woman, highly trained, supremely efficient and kindness itself, was in our home to help us - not the other way ’round. She has a lovely southern accent, as you would you expect from someone born and bred in Lancaster. She said she feels as though northerners view folks with southern accents as working with less than a full set of brains. But you know, to her, we are the ones with the accents. (Accents are funny things. Very often in the early hours of the day in the Lake House pool there are five of us with accents: one New Yorker, one Georgia Peach, one English-born, one German-born, and one Frenchman.  O.K., which one of us has the accent? And remember, two of those five speak more than one language. How many do you speak?) Accents tell others where we were born, not who we are and how much we know. That can be told by what we say and how we say it.           

I know that many of SCCL’s residents think nothing of giving a hard, rude time to the folks at the Lake House desk. The denizens of the desk say that a thick skin has to go along with the job, but that’s a sad commentary on how we live here. I can imagine myself manning the desk and spying some grim-looking resident coming up to face me. I’d think “Oh boy, here comes trouble.”  How much nicer it would be for me to greet a smiling resident with a sincere “How may I help you.”  If they said “I’ve got a big problem here and I need you to help me solve it,” their smile would already have put me on their side. Simple as that: it’s nice to be nice.

The stories told by the nurse or desk personnel are not unique. Many of our local merchants tell similar stories. In my humble opinion folks, this rude, ‘I’m better than you are’, ‘you are here to serve me’, ‘the world owes me a living’ attitude has got to stop. You are giving the rest of us a bad reputation. Ain’t none of us so wonderful, so rich, so absolutely right, or even so old, that we can be rude and thoughtless to others, no matter what their status, station or calling in life. 

Think of, truly digest, the words of the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.   Get beyond your pain or your problem, be pleasant if it kills you, and help will be given to you sooner and with a smile.  ‘As you would have them do unto you’ - fate forbid some folks should think to be as rude in return as some are to them. That would be nasty, and it might even come to fisticuffs. (Oooo, can I watch?)  

There are all sorts of mottoes and sayings that could be trotted out to tell you to have more regard for others - you probably know them all.  These two will suffice: ‘Remember the Golden Rule’, and ‘It’s Nice to be Nice’. Now - go to your mirror and practice your smile. 

ON BECOMING A CURMUDGEON

              

I don’t think I’m quite there yet, not quite ready to fill Andy Rooney’s shoes, but as I get older I feel more and more curmudgeonly. Some of the topics flying around SCCL lately just bring out the curmudgeon in me.

Wrong and Right

Have you ever heard this one: “Dogs are like string: every yo-yo wants one”?  We’ve got a few yo-yo’s around here, that’s for sure.  Most folks will say “oh, you don’t like dogs” or “you don’t understand”.  

Wrong: I like dogs. I’ve got four wonderful grand-dogs. I know something about the canine family, and I especially admire large, working dogs. (I do sometimes wonder at the sight of tall, hefty men out walking their miniature dogs. I want to yell “get a real dog” at them, but I suppose a little dog, however yappy they are, can be loved as much and mean as much as a large one.)   

We had several dogs when I was growing up. One memorable dog was a juvenile Great Dane that my uncle brought to us when we first moved to the countrified wilds of Nassau County, Long Island, from the civilized, citified sanity of Queens, New York. He thought we needed a dog for protection. After a week or two, my Mother decided she’d risk life and limb and the security of the family, rather than to have to feed that dog. I learned about the economic impact of dogs, and pets in general, at an early age. I love dogs - just for other people. I do not want to have to spend retirement funds to feed them, vet them, kennel them when we travel, or walk them on a schedule that’s theirs, not mine, much less scoop their poop. Other people are welcome to do it, just not me. But I do like dogs. 

Right: I don’t understand. Here’s where the ‘yo-yo’ comes in: I don’t understand some of the dog owners here at Sun City Carolina Lakes who have so little respect for their fellow homeowners that they don’t curb their dogs and/or don’t clean up after them. They’d have a fit if another dog walker left a load on their property.

I could not believe it when we were told of folks who dump their doo-bags (to be distinguished from doo-rags) down the drainage grates in our streets. For Pete’s sake, the drainage grates are not sewers. The water ends up in our own little Carolina Lakes.

And another thing: I don’t understand the people who think the SCCL HOA is there to provide their personal supply of doo-bags. (I also don’t understand why the HOA pays for these bags in the first place. A nice little addition among many other deletions?) The HOA puts the bags out and they disappear before you can say scoopy-doo. How cheap can these folks get? I realize that some people are just built this way, but I wish they weren’t. Well – I could go on, but…

This is just one of the things that regularly strike me as being fodder for a good grump session. I find that with age I haven’t gained more wisdom: I’m just viewing things with a more cynical eye, with a little more skepticism, and with a lot more disbelief. I read or see something that strikes an off-key note, and it all sets me grumbling and complaining. I hope to be writing more about such things. It will take a while more for me to become a full blown curmudgeon, but I’m working on it - it’s such fun.