Innocence lost

It is, indeed, truly sad to see that the LA transit system feels the need to install turnstiles... there was something uniquely Southern California about not having this on the metro. It is a sense of community. A belief that the person next to you really would help you if you needed it. We still open doors, hold elevators and greet our fellow citizens. And we trust each other and the powers that be trust us to follow the rules: stop at red lights, allow pedestrians to walk, pay for our metro ticket.

Though I don't live in SoCal anymore, I'd like to think that it runs through my veins.

It irritates me to no end to be right behind someone who half opens a door for him/herself to enter and then lets the door slam in my face.

I test my fellow pedestrians on the way to work... I greet them all with a cheery GOOD MORNING. Most mornings I get 90% of them to respond...but it is almost never the other way around, where I would get to choose or not to respond to a stranger greeting me. Invariably I can tell before I get to the person on the street whether or not he/she will respond. It's a cultural thing (read color...black folks always respond and almost always with a smile), and it's a generational thing -- anyone over 60 responds, again almost always happily. There are those I catch off guard who respond a greeting hastily with no trace of a smile. And there are those that surprise me... the teenagers, the hurried/scared looking person... but it's still me initiating contact.

Where I grew up, when I was growing up there, people spoke to you no matter what. If you were standing in a line, by the end of your wait you would know a substantial amount of information about the person in front or behind of you, except his/her name.

You can maintain your anonymity and still be polite and even friendly. You are not giving anything up by greeting people you don't know. If we could get past that fear and believe in each other and ourselves enough to follow basic rules, I wonder if civility could have a resurgence.

Perhaps...but I still haven't written my piece on the comments on the online newspapers...