Half Life: A Gentleman to all People
Lessons I learned from my dad and holding the door for people.
Dad walking on a California beach with my eldest brother in the late 70s or early 80s.Here I am getting the May newsletter in at the last possible minute. So typical. Despite my efforts to write it earlier in the month.
A few tidbits, and then we jump in the deep end of the pool:
I’m on vacation. Sort of. I’ve taken off the term from school to reenergize as I was burning out. I had been going almost nonstop for two years. Which is hard to believe. I say sort of because I started working an internship a few weeks ago. I’m an Editor for a nonprofit which is something I had been wanting to dabble in.
I have been getting in editing on the third draft of Jonah of Olympic and hope to have it finished this upcoming month. After that, I’ll send it off to Grace, my editor, and after that shenanigans I’ll publish it. Heck yeah.
Speaking of my book series, I’ve added the first two stories to Apple Books, which you can find here.
Also, the first book, Sweet Sixteen Killer, is now available for free on Google Play Books here.
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Gentle-people
When I was a kid my dad was huge on making me hold doors for people. If we were entering a restaurant or something, he'd tell me to wait and hold the door for the people behind us. Many interesting things happened in those times. Some people appreciated it and thanked me. Some people loved it so much that they thanked me and took over from me to pay it forward. Some hated it and would push the door while I was holding it, as if to say, “I could have done that.” Others didn’t pay attention and wouldn’t even notice me.
Sometimes the line of people coming for the door was so long that I often found myself questioning if it was too long to wait for so many people. Other times there would be a large gap and I could see someone out in the parking lot coming and wonder, Should I wait? And then I realized that it was absurd to even question. An extra 20, 30, or even 60 seconds of waiting on someone was not going to disrupt my day. It was worth the wait.
My dad never told me to hold the door for “ladies” or any particular group. I believe that's because he wanted me to be a gentleman to all people. So that's what I did. No matter who was coming to the door, I would wait, and let them in first. I still follow this ritual to this day. And I think we all should do the same. My dad was right — we should be gentlemen, or gentle-people, to everyone.
This is probably why I’ve developed my mottos Be good to each other and Don’t be a dick, which I wrote about here.
Half Life by David Duchovny.
I was hesitant to post another story about my dad so soon after Patches: “Daddy’s Strictest Rule.” But I was considering some posts from my old blog and I stumbled on this one and it’s something I remember him by almost every day, sometimes multiple times per day, because if you’re out and about you’re gonna hold a door or two. It just felt right to share this, and the Patches one, as we need more good shit out here in the wild. There’s too much harsh and hateful behavior in our society right now.
That said, this month’s song is Half Life by David Duchovny (of X-Files fame) and is about his friendship with his X-Files co-star Gillian Anderson. It’s catchy and the lyrics are sweet. I hope everyone has a friend some of these lyrics can apply to.
Stay friendly. Peace out.
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