the rix mix

Did you have a mom who reprimanded you immediately for speaking with your mouth filled with food? I did. & two grandmothers, too. I was also expected to stand up when grownups first entered the room, & make my seat available to them. I was taught to address adults as Mr., Mrs. & Miss, never to use their first names or nicknames unless requested by them, which rarely happened. It was important that one should never be perceived to be offering these courtesies with the transparent phoniness of teenage troublemaker Eddie Haskell on "Leave It To Beaver." We used to hear that rich kids had the most lax manners, I didn't personally know any, but I believed it. So it wasn't just the off-handed & callous dinner table remarks of George W. Bush that bugged me - no deep thinker he - but also that he made them with a mouth filled with bread. I blame it in large part on Mrs. Barbara Bush, whose own manners were exposed as coldly insincere.

Things I doubt George W. Bush has ever done:

• hard-boiled an egg & prepared an egg salad sandwich
• a load of laundry - wash, dry & fold
• taken his children to a small church carnival
• read Mark Twain's "Life On the Mississippi" (even just all the first part)
  
• floated in a tube around a circular backyard pool

I would never permit this president to act so familiar as to call me "Rix," a nickname reserved for old friends & radio listeners. With Bill Clinton it'd be OK. But Bill seems like the type who'd call me "Bobby." I'd call him "Mr. President." I'd also say "Mr. President" to George W. Bush but there I might sound like Eddie Haskell.

Novelist Mickey Spillane died. Mickey grew up in Elizabeth NJ. I recall when he made a trip here to look around & visit his ancient grammar school teacher. Coincidentally, last weekend I watched Kiss Me Deadly (1955), a bizarre & hugely enjoyable low budget noir directed by Robert Aldrich. One of the clues in this atomic age private eye movie involves lines from a Christina Rossetti sonnet:

Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of a future that you plann'd:
Only remember me, you'll understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Labels: culture, Elizabeth NJ, George W. Bush, obituary