In cultural anthropology there is a deep reverence for the study of ritual. To be fair, this is largely out of the researcher’s fierce grasp of the practical. Rituals happen over and over again, so it’s not hard to anticipate them and show up with spiral notebook in hand, camera rolling. Imagine trying to do a first-person study of: “Things that Only Ever Happened Once and Never, Ever Again.” Cue the harried anthropologist telling study subjects: “Sorry folks, my recorder ran out of batteries. Could you do that again?”

Among rituals, so-called common courtesies can seem like endangered species— or, worse, like anachronisms that are no longer politically correct. But they are indeed rituals, and as we anthros will tell you, rituals are important for the cultural values they transmit.

“Through ritual performance, the ideas of a culture become concrete, take on form. … By performing our ideas, our ideas become real.” —Emily A. Schultz and Robert H. Lavenda 1990

So here I offer a list of some underrated, overlooked, and maligned rituals still practiced by only the most courteous of living-in-the-past cowboys. A couple of these are especially fresh for me as I hop my way into my third month healing a torn Achilles. Receiving a little assistance from my fellow humans as I try to make my way down stairways or through heavy doors has never been more welcome:

1. Holding Doors — I’m not talking about the driver rushing around to open each passenger’s door (although who can argue with feeling like they’re stepping out of a limo onto the red carpet?). As you pass through doors, it’s a dying art to simply look back and see if someone is coming just behind you. The key is not to get huffy if a door slams in your face, but rather to set the example. People almost always say thank you, even if it’s with a surprised chuckle that says “boy, I never do that for other people.”

2. Saying Hello — Particularly with customer service workers on the phone, I’ve learned that saying “Hi, how are you” and closing with “thanks— you have a nice day as well” can be alarmingly unexpected. There is actually a history to saying hello and good-bye on the phone: it’s more than a common courtesy. In Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell’s day (Bell actually fought for “ahoy” over “hello”), these were ways to make sure the phone line was actually connected. That concern has returned, thanks to modern cell phones’ unflappable ability to muddle connections or drop calls outright. The ritual of hello and goodbye is a useful courtesy for both sides of a conversation, sort of like a trucker radioing “Anybody out there got their ears on, come back?” and “Over and out, good buddy.”

3. Minding your Ps and Qs — The simple act of saying please and thank-you may strike some as quaint, but like all the other endangered courtesies, it gets easier and less intrusive with practice. The key is not sounding solicitous, so that “may I please” and “hey, thanks” are as natural as blinking.

4. Looking out for Others — Boy Scouts who take unsuspecting elders by the elbow to help them across the street may be in danger of a swinging purse or cane to the knees, but there is a time and place still for old-school courtesies. In the first week of my injury, a stranger stood just below me and to the side as I crutched my way down the stairs from the bar at Eldora Mountain (yes, I returned to the scene of the crime to drink a reverent pint for the strands of tendon that have left us too soon). As I made my way down those stairs, the guy below me didn’t risk pestering me with “are you OK?” but positioned himself to be ready if I needed help. And when I made it down safely his expression was one of shared triumph. Or was it relief, as in “Oh, good, no more blood to clean off these stairs this week”?

I believe these and others are peculiarly human courtesies. Perhaps birds say hello each morning, but I prefer to think they’re screeching out the previous night’s bad dreams of under-ripe worms. Certainly some animals look out for each other, but I think that boils down to a naked survival instinct. Nothing wrong with getting naked and surviving, but once we’ve got those two necessities down, can we aspire to a little more? My Achilles thanks you.

Cheers,

Part 5 of 12, blogging the Scout Law once a month. Happy 100th anniversary to all my fellow Tenderfeet and Beagle Scouts.

Photo by Boo-Creative