Zen's thread reminded me...

[tmarie64]

I'd thought about this before and was gonna bring it up, but forgot... anyway...

I've noticed that here people tend to be nicer, more polite anyway, and live by the "golden rule" more than anyone I've ever seen in the little towns I've lived in. It's like people here just don't get "bothered" by as much. People will let you out in traffic more. I haven't seen anyone flipping anyone off. No one honks at the guy who sat at the light and didn't notice it was green. People apologize, like that lady at Panera that I discussed in Zen's other thread.

I also notice, people are out...walking, running, biking... I'm in the "West End"... not Richmond...so, that could be part of it. But, so far, I've seen people get along better here than any small town I've lived in.

[TigersEyeDowsing]

I'm glad you think Richmond is a 'little town!' The Mayberry effect is well known here in the south... That's why all the 'damn yankees' move here, yet then it gets to be a bustling city and we lose the small town charm.

[gillyflower]

The South has it's good points and that's one, I agree. People here will address each other by Miz Smith or the younger ones will address older women as Miss Laura. Men do it too. Strangers say Good Morning when passing you on the street. Small courtesies do make a difference.

[tmarie64]

I'm glad you think Richmond is a 'little town!' The Mayberry effect is well known here in the south... That's why all the 'damn yankees' move here, yet then it gets to be a bustling city and we lose the small town charm.

I didn't say it was a litle town... I said people were nicer here than in any little town I've lived in.
I KNOW that it's not a little town.
I was saying that here, a CITY, people are nicer than in small towns.

Small town charm, my ass! I have NEVER been treated as nicely or politely as I have been since moving here. Small towns SUCK.

[tmarie64]

The South has it's good points and that's one, I agree. People here will address each other by Miz Smith or the younger ones will address older women as Miss Laura. Men do it too. Strangers say Good Morning when passing you on the street. Small courtesies do make a difference.

No, people don't address each other by name. They don't know each other. What I'm saying is that, in general, they are more polite than in the podunk towns where everyone knows virtually everyone else.

Example... I lived in Muhlenberg County for 13 years....NEVER saw people walking on the street smiling. If you dare pull out in front of someone they will lay down on the horn and flip you off. The people in the stores actually sigh if you ask them something, as if you, the customer and reason they have a job, are a bother to them. No one says, "Hi", when you walk into the stores. No one says, "Thank you", when you leave the stores. Well, not "no one", but a damn small percentage.
Same thing applied for Hopkins and Christian counties. Same thing in Topeka and Branson.

People here just seem happier. Not what I expected for an area with nearly 900k people.

[DotNotInOz]

What I'm saying is that, in general, they are more polite than in the podunk towns where everyone knows virtually everyone else.

Maybe you had the misfortune to live in a small-town-unfriendly part of the country. I really miss how neighborly and friendly people were in the small Kansas towns where I used to live. And we're talking small end of small...the largest was 1600 pop.

If you walked past someone you didn't know, they'd typically smile and say hello or good morning. Children weren't as paranoid of greeting an adult stranger--well, not a female one anyway. Maybe they didn't speak as readily to men.

I was often asked if I needed a ride when I was walking somewhere. It actually got a bit irritating now and then when I was out for the exercise and trying to keep up a consistent pace.

If you ran out of gas near a farm, they'd often fill a gascan for you, take you to where your car was and put enough in it to get you to a station, or just hand you the can and ask you to bring it back once you got a fillup. This happened to me once when I was stupidly running home on fumes and ran out about three miles from town. When I returned the farmer's gascan, he wouldn't even take any money for the couple gallons he'd given me since I'd had no cash on me at the time.

[Davelaw]

If you ran out of gas near a farm, they'd often fill a gascan for you, take you to where your car was and put enough in it to get you to a station, or just hand you the can and ask you to bring it back once you got a fillup. This happened to me once when I was stupidly running home on fumes and ran out about three miles from town. When I returned the farmer's gascan, he wouldn't even take any money for the couple gallons he'd given me since I'd had no cash on me at the time.

I ran out of gas yesterday in subuurb of Houston a couple with small children went bought jme a gas can with gas and wouldn't take money or their gas can back-though it probably didn't hurt that it was a sunday morning, at least 50 cars passed me- one car stopped.

[gillyflower]

How nice for you, Dave!

What I meant, Tina, was that out in Arizona and other places I've lived, people automatically addressed women by the first name while here in the south where I live, they don't. The most charming, I think, tradition is of calling your elders Miss (first name). I agree that people do tend to be more courteous of others on the road here and happier on the street.

[tmarie64]

The southern "ma'am" and "sir" thing is almost the hardest thing I have to stop doing in my new job. They want us to use first names, while everywhere I've ever worked it's just courtesy to address the customer as "Ma'am" or "Sir".

[DotNotInOz]

Did I understand you correctly? They want you to address all customers by the customer's first name????

I guess since restaurant servers are obliged to introduce themselves by name anymore, we've gotten to where we think everybody ought to be on first-name basis. I really don't care that much about knowing my server's name. It's a temporary relationship, not the beginning of a friendship or lifetime commitment.

It was always "sir" or "ma'am" when I worked retail unless the customer was a regular or someone else you knew personally. Even a few of our regular customers preferred the customary "sir" or "ma'am" and title-last name rather than being addressed by their first names.

[sacrificialgoddess]

When I was in retail, I was instructed to address people with title and last name. Now, however, I often address people by first name, simply because they neglected to give me their last name when they called and left me a message! So things can get interesting in the newspaper business...

[tmarie64]

When I was in retail, I was instructed to address people with title and last name. Now, however, I often address people by first name, simply because they neglected to give me their last name when they called and left me a message! So things can get interesting in the newspaper business...

That's just automatically the way I did things when I was in retail. Unless I knew a person, I called them "Mr." or "Miss", "Sir", or "Ma'am".
It's just how I did things.
Of course, now, my kids are comfortable with the whole first name thing, I think it's more generational than regional.

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