Saturday
Then: Civility
It was an hour-long call from Italy, and when it was over, I felt humbled about my problem and lifted out of my funk. Denis Boyles talked about moving his family half way around the world to Italy so he could make trips to Albania. Risking life and limb, he was committed to writing a book about how the clergy of a minority religion in the country was taking on the impossible to rebuild the basic infrastructure of a modern society – because no one else in the country or global community was stepping forward.
Blessed is not a common word in my vocabulary because to me it’s so ‘Christian.’ But I feel blessed to know Denis Boyles. Carla scolds me for my slovenly ways and sloppy manners by holding out the example of Denis, and she’s never even met him. She’s only read his books and columns, especially the ones pleading with guys to return to civility. I first showed her Denis’s work when I gave her his December, 1997, Life’s Little Lessons column from Men’s Health magazine. I’m merely lifting snippets here, but listen to Denis’s advice:
“By simply affecting the artifices of civility, you can cut to the front of the line…In a culture in which those most elevated are often those most vulgar, everybody’ll admire you for your civility. The basic elements (are good manners)….the main thing about manners is that they aren’t so much a set of rules as a way of behaving so you make as many people comfortable as possible. All you need to know, I swear (includes)…Be quiet and don’t interrupt; Show deference to women and those older than you; Smile from time to time. (So), if you really want to stand out in this mayhem (modern civilization)….elegance – which is what you get if you wear your manners on your sleeve – is your ticket.”
One of my first thoughts after my diagnosis was a story Denis told me in 1996 about being one of the founders of Men’s Health magazine. “Yea,” he said, “We knew guys didn’t want to read articles about their prostates (having no idea what a prostate was, it was still very funny.) He continued: “Instead of writing about failing eyesight as men age, we wrote about – and illustrated – how much harder it would be to hit Sandy Kofax’s curveball at age 45 as opposed to age 25.”
No one can put today’s guys’ jumbled up feelings and lives into words like Denis Boyles. Author of books and articles that are at once hilarious, that request the return to civility and are a helpful guidebook (like A Man's Life), Denis was constantly in my thoughts, even though we only spoke a few times leading up to and through surgery.
And Denis passed on his interest in old men’s pulp magazines to me, so that became one of several pursuits via the Internet during long days leading up and after surgery. With apologies to the long-gone creators of these fantasies for what guys could be back then, I also began playing around with altering old magazine covers to suit my whims. So, when I needed to take a break from writing this document, I started to search and peruse pulp magazine cover galleries on the Web. Lacking the graphic design and software skills to just create new titles in similar old type faces to found cover art, I had to scramble the letters of title words already there to construct new titles and phrases.
I would never have acknowledged and basked in wonder at all the Christian prayer directed my way were it not for Denis. He told me at great length about scientific studies proving prayers’ power. He told of a local parish priest in rural Pennsylvania where he lives about ready to pack up and go to Rome to die until the parishioners said: No way, we’re going to cure you with prayer. And they did.
Denis urged me to read the book The Way of a Pilgrim. It’s a classic work of Russian spirituality about a pilgrim who wanders the country trying to answer the question about why someone should pray constantly. I’ve not read J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey since college, but Pilgrim is the book Franny clutches throughout that tale.
Denis is one of people I regretted most about becoming a ‘cabbage’ after surgery. ¶ 1:35 PM
Blessed is not a common word in my vocabulary because to me it’s so ‘Christian.’ But I feel blessed to know Denis Boyles. Carla scolds me for my slovenly ways and sloppy manners by holding out the example of Denis, and she’s never even met him. She’s only read his books and columns, especially the ones pleading with guys to return to civility. I first showed her Denis’s work when I gave her his December, 1997, Life’s Little Lessons column from Men’s Health magazine. I’m merely lifting snippets here, but listen to Denis’s advice:
“By simply affecting the artifices of civility, you can cut to the front of the line…In a culture in which those most elevated are often those most vulgar, everybody’ll admire you for your civility. The basic elements (are good manners)….the main thing about manners is that they aren’t so much a set of rules as a way of behaving so you make as many people comfortable as possible. All you need to know, I swear (includes)…Be quiet and don’t interrupt; Show deference to women and those older than you; Smile from time to time. (So), if you really want to stand out in this mayhem (modern civilization)….elegance – which is what you get if you wear your manners on your sleeve – is your ticket.”
One of my first thoughts after my diagnosis was a story Denis told me in 1996 about being one of the founders of Men’s Health magazine. “Yea,” he said, “We knew guys didn’t want to read articles about their prostates (having no idea what a prostate was, it was still very funny.) He continued: “Instead of writing about failing eyesight as men age, we wrote about – and illustrated – how much harder it would be to hit Sandy Kofax’s curveball at age 45 as opposed to age 25.”
No one can put today’s guys’ jumbled up feelings and lives into words like Denis Boyles. Author of books and articles that are at once hilarious, that request the return to civility and are a helpful guidebook (like A Man's Life), Denis was constantly in my thoughts, even though we only spoke a few times leading up to and through surgery.
And Denis passed on his interest in old men’s pulp magazines to me, so that became one of several pursuits via the Internet during long days leading up and after surgery. With apologies to the long-gone creators of these fantasies for what guys could be back then, I also began playing around with altering old magazine covers to suit my whims. So, when I needed to take a break from writing this document, I started to search and peruse pulp magazine cover galleries on the Web. Lacking the graphic design and software skills to just create new titles in similar old type faces to found cover art, I had to scramble the letters of title words already there to construct new titles and phrases.
I would never have acknowledged and basked in wonder at all the Christian prayer directed my way were it not for Denis. He told me at great length about scientific studies proving prayers’ power. He told of a local parish priest in rural Pennsylvania where he lives about ready to pack up and go to Rome to die until the parishioners said: No way, we’re going to cure you with prayer. And they did.
Denis urged me to read the book The Way of a Pilgrim. It’s a classic work of Russian spirituality about a pilgrim who wanders the country trying to answer the question about why someone should pray constantly. I’ve not read J.D. Salinger’s Franny & Zooey since college, but Pilgrim is the book Franny clutches throughout that tale.
Denis is one of people I regretted most about becoming a ‘cabbage’ after surgery. ¶ 1:35 PM
