LEGISLATORS and educators want our kids to learn the rudiments of good conduct and right manners. Thank you very much, let’s start with those first two words, if not all four. Why do today’s generation think “thank you” is for the birds?
Blame it on their parents. The same parents who, when fetching their kids from school, pull them along the street, not using the pedestrian lane and crossing when the light is green for cars. At the mall, their backpacks hit you in the ribs and they don’t mind, so why should you. To them, saying “excuse me” is unheard of, as strange a language as it is extinct.
“Thank you” that we don’t need a turkey dinner tonight to be thankful. Happy Thanksgiving! According to the Word of God, a sense of gratitude is a blessing that multiplies blessings. In the vernacular, “Walang utang na loob!” sounds like a curse.
“Thank you” to the soldiers who have shed blood in the line of duty. “Thank you” to the policemen who struggle to serve and protect. “Thank you” to the faithful civil servants who work undeterred despite the corruption they see more glaringly than the rest of us.
“Thank you” to your dentist and mine (Dr. Bobby Guison) for their gentle hands, no pain is their gain. “Thank you” to EDSA, the most abused name of an extremely overused road that despite Apocarlypse and Carmageddon has not surrendered its purposefulness. “Thank you” for the law that provides me and 4 million other senior-itas a discount card.
“Thank you” to the white and silver-haired who own the power to force those around them to slow down, make way, don’t push. “Thank you” for what Ricky Reyes’ Straight Xpress campaign calls “the power of long straight black hair”; “thank you” to our beauty queens whose glossy black manes stand out against a sea of blondes and redheads.
“Thank you” that Manila, Makati, Baguio have so delightfully lifted our spirits with their Christmas trees, stars and lanterns, traffic islands planted to Yuletide greetings at night for the naughty and the nice. A cautionary note to unenlightened mayors: Are your brains so dense that you’re afraid to light up and come out of the shadows?
