November 17, 2009. Chevy Chase, Md. Manners.

I wonder if it is really true? Are people in the West just more polite and pleasant than those in the East? Now I know that the situations are not alike. I was in a tourist area where the folks are trained to be polite and everyone at the convention are from other places in the US and Canada, but when we were riding the trolley, the local people were helpful. They smiled at us and asked if we were enjoying San Diego. It was obvious that we were tourists because we did not know where we were going and when we were getting off and we had to ask a hundred questions.

Today in Bethesda, the weather was lovely. The only difficulty was that when walking across the street, you had to really watch out for the automobiles, even when the walk signal was on. In the elevator from my parking garage no one spoke at all. Honking horns are heard when the first car in line is slow to enter the intersection. I have heard that folks in the East are more intense or more bossy. I have never seen that to be true, but perhaps I have become just like everyone else and so do not notice. Certainly, it was noticeably, watching the California kids this weekend and the Bethesda workers today.