Everett Family Etiquette

Because the first day of school is just around the corner, I’m mind traveling back to my elementary school days in Everett. Let me clarify that if you will.

I’m saying, “School is just around the corner,” in reference to our nostalgic “Growing Up in Everett” timeline as opposed to the current public school schedule. Lucky for us, we went to school long before some bureaucratic idiot came up with the nonsensical idea to send the kids back to school before the Labor Day weekend.

There are actually people out there who honestly believe that the more time a kid spends in school, the more that he or she will learn. I’ve got to be honest with ya. I’ve never heard anything so foolish in my life. I think Mark Twain summed it up best when he said, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

The more you think back on our elementary school experience, the more you will recall the many peculiar rules and regulations imposed on us that did more to hinder our learning experience than it did to help. Like making us wear neck ties and insisting that we button our top collar button so tight that it made us gag. And making the girls wear skirts to school in below freezing temperatures.

What has either one of those rules got to do with learning? If you can make any sense out of those two rules, or even find just one justification as to how they helped any kid learn something, then please share that with me because I’m still totally befuddled by it all.

You cannot encourage a kid to learn, or to strive beyond his or her comfort zone to achieve their full potential by imposing an unwarranted rigid structure that serves no purpose. And you can’t do it by portraying the outside world as an unrealistic utopia with liberty and justice for all. Kids are not stupid. They see right through it. All that does is make them cynical.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. I went from kindergarten to the sixth grade at the Horace Mann Elementary School on the corner of Lexington and Prospect from 1957 to 1963. That was back when Coronet Films were at their zenith.

You remember those Coronet Instructional Films – right? You knew it was coming as soon as the teacher told the class "goody-two-shoes" to pull down all the shades. That meant we were going to take an hour out of our daily lessons to watch an unrealistic portrayal of American family values.

These films portrayed the typical American family that said please and thank you to each other over every little interaction they had. The father wore a suit and tie at the supper table, and the mother always wore a stylish housedress. Everyone's hair was combed to perfection. And they all had a napkin on their lap when they ate.

When the film ended, the teacher would ask us questions about how we observe proper manners at our homes. "How many of you always say please when you ask for something at the supper table?" Everyone raised their hand - even me.

Then she'd ask, "How many of you say "thank you" when you get what you asked for?" Again, everyone raised their hand. Yes, I did too. And finally she asked, "How many of you wash your hands before and after supper without being told?" Naturally, everyone raised their hand - including me.

Isn't it comforting to know that growing up in Everett meant that we all had families like the ones we saw portrayed on TV? When we sat down at the supper table, we were all neatly dressed. We had all washed our hands, combed our hair, followed all of the proper table manner rules, and always asked politely if we may be excused before leaving the supper table - right?

What's wrong with this picture?

Okay, let's rewind that film. This time, let's watch it as if it portrayed a typical Everett family. Shall we?

First of all, if we're all going to sit down at the supper table together - then this must be Sunday. If it isn't Sunday, then the moment I step into the door, my mother is not going to say, "Welcome home, dear. You're just in time for supper."

What she's going to say is "Where in the hell have you been? I've been calling you for over an hour. You know we always eat supper when you're father gets home. Now our supper's cold and it's all your fault."

To which I reply, "Why didn't you just eat without me?"

"Who in the hell do you think you're talking to? You're not talking to one of your friends now, buddy boy. Just sit down and shut up before I knock you down."

So I take my seat at the kitchen table while my mother continues to rant and rave over my coming home late as she dishes out the food. She's wound so tight that she's slamming the food down onto our plates. It just so happens that she plops three scoops of French fries onto my plate and only two onto my brother, Carl's.

I smirk at him and say, "I got more French fries than you."

"Hey Ma, you gave Paul more French fries than me and I'm always home on time."

"Oh, I did not," she shouts.

"Yes, she did," I whisper to him because I'm sitting right next to him.

"You did, too," he shouts. "And it isn't fair."

"Oh for cry sakes," she shouts as she plops two more scoops of fries down onto his plate.

"Now, I got more than you," he taunts.

"No you don't," I say as I reach over and grab a handful of his French fries and jam them into my mouth.

"He took my French fries," he screams at the top of his lungs. "And he didn't even wash his hands before he sat down!"

"Why you son of a beach," my mother yells as she jumps up and grabs hold of that belt that seems to magically appear out of thin air whenever she wants it. Next thing you know, I'm crawling under the table to escape the inevitable wrath while my mother's swinging wildly trying to get a piece of me.

In all the chaos, she accidentally knocks over a glass of water, and spills water all over the table cloth. I'm a dead man now.

"Look what you made me do," she shouts. "I can't have a gawd dam decent thing in this house. All I ask is just once to get to sit down to a peaceful meal like a normal family. Now get in there and wash those filthy hands. Then sit down and eat your supper. And don't let me hear another peep out of you."

I cautiously take my seat next to Carl, and we finally settle down to enjoy our stone cold supper. It's just as well. We're eating liver tonight. Did you ever have to eat liver? Neither did I. You heard that right. I don't eat liver - never did - never will.

When we have liver, I pretend to eat it, but as soon as nobody's looking, I drop it onto my lap. Then I open my legs so it falls through down onto the front of my chair. When I close my legs they hide the liver on my chair. I've got it down to an exact science.

As soon as all the liver was off of my plate and onto my chair, I'd reach down with my napkin and ball it all up. Instead of asking, "May I please be excused?" I'd jump up and shout, "I gotta pee my brains out," and make a beeline to the bathroom. And don’t worry, even if I don't have to pee, I've got that all figured out.

Before we had a normal shower hook up, my mother had this hand-held shower thingy that fitted over the tub faucet so she could rinse her hair. The shower end easily pulled out of the tube it was attached to. If I turned the water on slowly enough, you wouldn't hear the water traveling through the pipes.

All you could hear from outside the bathroom was the water dribbling out of the end of that skinny hose and falling down into the toilet. It sounded just like somebody peeing. All I had to do now was quietly place the liver in the toilet and flush.

Minutes later, after finishing my French fries, I'd let out an ungawdly burp and say, "That was good. I'm outta here." Carl, however, will sit at that kitchen table, until bedtime if he has to, until he eats every last bit of that liver. And no, I'm not telling him the secret to my success. You know what they say? “Loose lips sink ships.”

While this entire hullabaloo is going on, Julie and Billy are having their own battle just across the table.

"Ma, Billy's elbow is sticking in my face."

"Billy, put your elbow down!"

"I can't reach my mouth with my fork if I don't bend my arm," he shouts back.

"Get that gawd dam elbow down at your side before I rip it off," she shouts.

So now Billy goes into malicious compliance mode and crouches over the table with his elbows tucked so tightly to his side that he looks like he's picking his teeth with a needle.

"Straighten up!" My mother yells giving him a cuff across the back of the head.

As soon as my mother's eyes look back down at her supper plate, Billy shows Julie all of the chewed up food in his mouth.

"Ma, Billy's making me sick by showing me all the food in his mouth!"

"Gawd dammit," my mother yells as she again draws that belt out of thin air and starts chasing Billy all around the supper table.

"For cry sake, Grace, simmer down and eat your supper. Never mind about them two. Boys will be boys. Now settle down," my father snaps.

"Whose side are you on?" she screams at him. "A lot of help you are just sitting there stuffing your fat face without giving me any support to discipline these hooligans."

By the time we finish eating everyone's mad at each other and nobody's on speaking terms. At this stage of the game, if you asked to be excused – they’s rip your head off. That's what supper was like at my house. Why don't they show that in the film? They'd probably get their point across more effectively, I'm sure.

They even had a segment on proper bathroom etiquette. This one was hysterical if you asked me. In the film they showed a girl going to use the bathroom, but the door was locked.

She knocked quietly and asked, "Is anyone in there?"

"Yes, sis, I'm in here. Would you like to use the bathroom?"

"Yes, I would. Thank you."

The door opens and her brother steps out and says, "Be my guest."

Whoa - let's rewind that segment also. That never happened in my house. In the first place, nobody asks, "Is any one in there?" They ask, "Whose in there?" And naturally, the only logical reply to that question is "What does it matter?" The conversation in my house would go something like this.

"What are you doing in there?"

"It's none of your business. That's why there's a door on the bathroom."

"Ma! Paul's been in the bathroom for a half an hour and I need to go."

"Paul, get out of the bathroom!"

"No."

"What are you doing in there?"

"What do you think?"

"You come out of there this instant!"

"If I do my pants are gonna be down around my ankles."

I don't know about your family, but when two or more people in my family headed for the bathroom at the same time, nobody stepped aside and said, "Be my guest." We booked it to the bathroom, slammed the door shut, locked it, and then taunted everybody else because we got there first.

We'd yell out something like, "I'm gonna be in here for an hour so you may as well go on out in the backyard." To which the above conversation would then ensue.

In all honesty, they didn't show us these ridiculous films in school because they expected us to actually learn from them. They showed them so they could get a break from dealing with us kids for an hour. There's no way on earth these teachers could possibly think that our family lives were anything close to the ones portrayed in those silly films.

You probably figured this one out already, but I'm not always tuned into the same channel as everyone else. I say that because there were times in school when I completely did not understand the assignment at all, even though I had listened to the instructions attentively.

I thought I understood it, but when I turned in my paper, the teacher looked at me and asked, "What planet were you on when I explained this assignment?"

Which reminds me of a film they showed us in the third grade about proper etiquette at the public pool. In the film, nobody did a cannonball in the middle of a group of nerds to get them soaking wet. Nobody snapped a girl's butt with a rolled up wet towel. And nobody made fart bubbles in the water. Obviously, they did not shoot this film in Everett.

At the end of the film, the teacher started asking questions. I watched the entire film attentively and felt confident that I could answer any question she asked. That's why I wasn't nervous at all when she called on me.

"Paul, what did you notice about the kids standing around the pool?" she asked.

From my frame of reference, this was an easy question because I did notice something very peculiar about the kids standing around the pool. I told her exactly what I observed.

I told her, "All the boys had the exact same bathing suit on, and only one of the girls had a two-piece bathing suit. The girl with the two-piece bathing suit did not have a belly button. And none of the boys had nipples."

The class roared, and the teacher went absolutely ballistic on me. Not only did my classmate's laughter surprise me, but also the teacher's reaction to my answer. After all, she did ask what it was that I noticed. That's what I noticed.

My logic behind that answer was - it's not only the unrealistic manners portrayed in these films that made them totally irrelevant as a realistic guideline for proper behavior, but also the fact that the actors were not anatomically correct that made these productions an obvious farce.

Had I been a little more on the ball, I would have realized the teacher wanted a response that would have justified her wasting an hour of our school day that could have been better spent actually teaching us something.

Let's face it. If you grew up in Everett, you're family was nothing like the ones portrayed in those silly educational films. We didn't gladly share our ice cream cone with our sister. We didn't politely step aside when somebody else needed to use the bathroom. And we certainly didn't wear our school clothes to the supper table.

Why didn't we do that? Because – “We're from Everett!”

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If you're enjoying the nostalgia of our childhood, then let me remind you that you can download a small PDF sampling of my “We’re From Everett” book for free. You can get that by “clicking” your “Right” mouse button HERE and choosing “Save Target As.”

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BY THE WAY ....

Here's a heads-up for the E.H.S. Class of 1969. It's time for your 40th Reunion. Wow, where did the time go? It's set for November 7th at the Montvale Plaza - and it's only $55 per person. Reach out and get in touch with each other. After all - We're from Everett - right? For more information you can email your fellow classmate, Quentin O'Donnell, at --> odonnell115@comcast.net <-- or simply by just clicking HERE