Students Learn Good Manners Are Elementary
Around of applause for Nancy Colburn, please. The louder the better. Nancy stumps for the social graces, but she’s no over-starched sourpuss.
Nancy teaches etiquette to her fourth-graders at Hayden Meadows Elementary. They learn where the salad fork goes (on the far left) and where to find their bread plates (to the left of the forks).
They learn to say please and thank-you and that holding a door for anyone - male or female - is just plain respectful.
“My mom used to drive me nuts, it was so important to her that we practice appropriate manners,” Nancy says.
After her mother died 18 months ago, Nancy needed to share her appreciation of her mother’s wisdom. Etiquette lessons in her classroom seemed appropriate. Parents highly approve.
“We seem to be losing some civility,” says Donna Mason, whose son, Will, is in Nancy’s class. “I don’t think we can do too much to reinforce good manners.”
The lessons culminate with a formal dinner at Coeur d’Alene’s historic Greenbriar Inn. Proprietor Kris McIlvenna prepares lace-covered antique tables with mind-boggling six-utensil place settings.
Girls arrive in flowery dresses and pearl barrettes and boys in suits to feast on sweet and sour chicken, pasta primavera and strawberries dipped in chocolate.
The crowded tables intimidate the children a bit.
“They practiced it on paper and on their desks, but in reality, it’s different,” Nancy says, giggling as two boys claim the same silverware, start to argue, then remember their manners.
The children wait to eat until everyone is served. They need no reminders about where napkins belong but a few elbows drift onto the table. The boys want to watch television while dining. Nancy says no, but can’t stop smiling.
“Truly formal manners don’t exist anymore, but there seems to be a desire to get back to them,” Kris says. “I see a lot of polite kids now, some more polite than the adults.”
Maybe Nancy has something to do with it.
Memories
Coeur d’Alene native Gene Hyde was a freshman at Hayden Lake High (yes, really) in 1944 when all the students sneaked off to Tubbs Hill for a day. When nature called, Gene and a friend went to the top of the hill out of sight and splash range. (Remember, this was 52 years ago.) On their way back, they ran into girls answering calls of their own and trying desperately to hide from boys with big eyes.
A few years later, Gene was home for vacation from the University of Idaho when he and a friend hiked over Tubbs Hill. They couldn’t believe their luck when they spied two girls sunbathing nude on a flat rock near the water.
The young men climbed to a spot above the girls, dropped tiny rocks on them and took off down the trail. They never found out who the bathing beauties were.
Let it all hang out
Plummer has a summer celebration few other cities can match. Saturday, city residents will decorate their yards with used clothes, furniture, appliances and other valuables and sell the stuff to anyone who wants it.
The citywide yard sale will raise money for youth programs and for Brad Veile. He’s the Plummer government teacher who was chosen to visit Poland and Israel this year to study the Holocaust. His particular sale is at 359 E. St.
Young entrepreneurs
Kids in my neighborhood sell lemonade and, sometimes, their toys to earn money in the summer. What enterprising ways have you seen kids fatten their piggy banks? Sell their schemes to Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; fax to 765-7149; or call 765-7128.
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