Men Wearting Hats to the Dinner Table

[Tux Toledo]

My latest blog addresses the appalling lack of manners permeating our society:

This is not the place for shameless self promotion of your blog. It was deleted once, but you didn't get the message. It appears that it wasn't very well-received by the patrons here. Do a little soul searching before you post again. HJ

 

[mikespens]

If that ruined your day, imagine what would happen if you noticed the homeless around you

 

[Bushman]

There were two things I was taught about clothes and dining growing up: no shirt, no pants, no supper and that hats are to be taken off before you come into the house, and if you're outside, you take your hat off before grace is said. That was drilled into me as a child, and I feel like that drilling helped me have better manners as an adult.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Getcha hat off, ya bum! Ya bringin' down th' tone of th' establishment!"

 

[GHT]

There's a rather famous painting, At The Moulin Rouge, by Lautrec. It's late 19th century, I don't see any of the gentlemen removing their headwear. It seems that, like fashion, with courtesies, it could be a case of: What goes around comes around.

 

[Fastuni]

I'm rather certain the guys at Lautrec's are sitting on the outside.

 

[sheeplady]

It might help to differentiate between manners and etiquette.

While it is apparent that the man was not familiar with the rules of etiquette, unless you have a further observation of him and/or your own interaction with him, assuming him to have a lack of manners is rather off base.

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^

Yup.

 

[Historyteach24]

My own personal thing, but if I end up at a restaurant that I can't trust the cleanliness of the floor like a Texas Roadhouse or one of those types of places since THEY lack the courtesy of coat checks and hat checks like in the bygone era than I am keeping my damn hat on my head

 

[Bushman]

My own personal thing, but if I end up at a restaurant that I can't trust the cleanliness of the floor like a Texas Roadhouse or one of those types of places since THEY lack the courtesy of coat checks and hat checks like in the bygone era than I am keeping my damn hat on my head

That's why I prefer to be seated at a booth, particularly in the winter, when I can stuff my coat and hat onto seat beside me.

 

[tonyb]

It occurs to me that in certain circles, taking one's Thanksgiving Day dinner in a restaurant (as the OP did, according to his blog post), in the company of strangers (some of whom might not share one's sense of propriety), rather than at some relative's home, surrounded by blood relations and in-laws, would be taken as a sign of civilization in decline. "The family is the foundation of this civilization," some might cry. And not spending the third Thursday in November with relatives, but rather in some commercial establishment, just hastens the decline.

 

[Historyteach24]

If I am at Thanksgiving dinner with my friends and family I have no need for a hat because I am in a home, but eating out you will see me wearing a hat a lot.

 

[GHT]

It occurs to me that in certain circles, taking one's Thanksgiving Day dinner in a restaurant (as the OP did, according to his blog post), in the company of strangers (some of whom might not share one's sense of propriety), rather than at some relative's home, surrounded by blood relations and in-laws, would be taken as a sign of civilization in decline. "The family is the foundation of this civilization," some might cry. And not spending the third Thursday in November with relatives, but rather in some commercial establishment, just hastens the decline.

Now there's a comment where you light the blue touch paper and stand well clear. Here in the UK we don't have Thanksgiving Day, in fact most Brits, without the help of Google, would be hard pushed to know what the day, and why it's celebrated, is all about. But, we do have, like the rest of the Christian world: Christmas. And some journalist put forward, in her column, in one of our national newspapers, an argument that the Christmas Day dinner, should always be enjoyed among family, and certainly not, as is the popular trend, in some restaurant, or other sort of eaterie, among strangers. She also cited the family as being the bedrock of civilisation and to detract from that hastens the decline of the society that we cherish.

For the first 20 years of my life homosexuality was illegal, then the law changed, and suddenly a veil was drawn from my eyes. If there were people drawn to their own gender in an emotional way, so what? They never harmed me in any way. And if married couples choose to live a life without children, by choice, so what? They too never harmed me in any way either. And if members of a community choose to dine out on one of the most important days in the calendar of their community, instead of, as is the tradition, celebrate with family members, so what? How can that harm anyone?

America is a nation of nations, as described by the inscription on the Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

So many American citizens know of Thanksgiving but know not why. So many American citizens are from cultures that venerate family. Somehow I just can't visualize an America in decline of it's great values. Democracy, Judiciary and the embodiment of family, just because some of it's citizens enjoy Thanksgiving Day in a restaurant rather than in the restrained atmosphere of a family in conflict.