Pappa Hardy's Musings on Life.

Tonight we had an experience that I would rather not have seen. On many of the cruises we have been on, there have been very nice people and some not so nice. Sometimes, the tenor of the cruise gets set by this core group of people.

Today has been a day where rudeness has won out. It seems everywhere I was going someone was being rude to someone else. Toping it off tonight was a show in the Princess Theatre. A comedian was performing and doing his best. Even before the show was over, some of the older people were getting up and leaving. The show wasn’t lewd or mean. These people were not thoughtful and considerate of others. Once the show was finished, before the cruise director could get back on stage and close the show, many of the people were standing up and heading up the stairs to the exits. There was no respect whatsoever for the performers or the cruise director, and then a gentlemen yelled out at the top of his voice, before the cruise director was finished, and yelled, turn on the lights so we can see where we are going. The show was preceded by people arguing over seats and in several instances, a man would bully a place for he and his wife from someone else. People were just out of line.

I am afraid this cruise will go down in my books as one where the people were real rude. In my experience, sometimes that is determined by the place where these people are from, but I was ashamed to be on the same cruise with these people. It was really not acceptable.

I sat in Kohl’s today, waiting for my wife and my daughter to finish casing the store for some sort of special deal. Sitting there I had the time of my life watching people walk in to the store.

Some of them didn’t know how to react to me. I was sitting with my IPOD connected to me through a set of head phones that allowed me to hear my concert without involving the rest of the world. They would give me stares wondering what I was doing. I could have told them if they would have asked. I was in St. George and it was 105 outside, and I wanted to stay cool while the females did the shopping. The stares at me were really interesting. Many seemed uncomfortable to have me sit there. They didn’t like me looking at them. Others didn’t really care as much.

What was interesting for me was seeing the range of people. There were young, there were old. There were well dressed in the latest fashions, and others like me who didn’t look like they cared as much. There were old men, walking lovingly arm in arm with their old companions, and they were comfortable in their relationships. There were others that didn’t look so good. Some like me were carrying a few more pounds than they should be. Some had odd body shapes. Some were obviously pregnant, carrying a new life.

Some people like me found it difficult to bring the “family”, then there were young moms who brought all 7-8 kids with them. How in the heck where they going to go in and gather the fruits to be found in that store? It was an interesting experience. As always, the historian in me made me wonder, what is the story of that life I see in front of me? What has brought them to this moment in time, and where are they going? Never judge a book by its cover was the lesson I learned and what was reinforced.

I go on vacation or on a trip and I carry the office with me. That just isn’t resting, but I seem compelled to take it with me so maybe I can catch up. That just isn’t the best thing to do. Why can’t I seem to get better at this balancing act that we are all supposed to be going through?

I have never really been a fan of black Friday. For some reason I just don’t get a thrill of getting in the hunt for a bargain at 3am in the morning. I know that some people love that, but I am not one of them. I would much rather sleep in until my normal 5am get up time.

Unfortunately, I am the type of Christmas shopper that ends up not getting Christmas done until Christmas Eve. Somewhere, there must be a happy medium. I am unfortunately not it.

Normally during a cruise stop I am part of the masses that rush off of the ship and crowd the stores and tours on the mainland or the island or wherever I may be. However, when we went to Juneau we were in port until very late and we were back on the ship relatively early. It was like someone had yelled abandon ship!!. No one was on the ship. We would go to an elevator, and we would never have to wait long for one to come, and the elevator didn’t stop on every deck. Moreover, wherever we went or whatever we wanted to do also had no body competing with us for attention. It was like someone had yelled Abandon Ship, and the ship was abandoned.

Why is it as I get older that I seem to focus more and more on the obituaries. It seems to be a truism of life. I read them, and the question is, is it because I have survived another day and not changed my state of existence, or is it because I fear I may be mentioned in that place in the newspaper soon.

Living is wonderful. I think I am afraid of the next step.

One thing really scares my wife that is a reassuring sound to me. It is the sound of a jet engine as it starts to reflect a perceptible drop in power as it puts out less energy so a jet airliner can come in for a landing. My wife worries that we are going to crash. I know that the airliner makes the final approach by shutting down the power so that it can make an approach. I love the trip in a plane, but sometime I know we must return to earth and I plan on making those trips in safety.

I suppose it is a right to be rude if you want to be, but is it polite, I don’t think so. My recent cruise on the Crown Princess was very enjoyable except for the fact that we ran into a number of people who were downright rude. If whatever was going on was not according to their desires, they spoke up and they were rude. Once, my wife wanted to put her arm around me and she was told that she couldn’t do that by another lady. In several instances these people were obviously from New York, but I don’t think it was limited to that area of the country as the location of rudeness. I have been to New York and New York City and I found most of the people very delightful.

No, it was a select minority that were rude in their behavior and their remarks, and I felt sorry for them because their lives must be pretty bitter to make them want to behave this way. I am going to re-double my efforts to be polite with people.

Any more it is not enough to sit and watch a movie, attend a concert, or just watch TV. We have become a society of participators, but only when we can do it electronically and from afar. People find it harder to interact with people, but they don’t mind interacting with people through a separate medium. I don’t know what this is going to do to our families, our country, or our world.

The computer revolution has brought about a lot of changes. The biggest one is that we can now do a lot of our shopping on line. Here is where the difference between men and women have come to the fore, again. Men tend to be hunters, wanting to shoot the game and take it home. Women have always been gatherers. They want to move about, touching and feeling each item before deciding which one is the best deal and then taking it home.

Men now can go and find the stuff real quick on the internet. Sometimes, we stop at just ordering on line and forgetting it. Sometimes, we comparison shop on line (the gathering part of the exercise) but then we can go into a store nearby our home and shoot the kill and haul it home even quicker than before. Women on the other hand have to comparison shop even more than before, and what could be a simple task for a man on line, taking all of 5 to 10 minutes turns into a 30 minute ordeal for a women, and she is taking up precious computer resources. Maybe we haven’t changed all that much. All I know is that I hate to shop, and that the computer has made it a little less painful.