Back in my day, people sometimes held back their very best things for special use. Ordinary days meant ordinary things in the house and ordinary routines without using the good stuff that had been put away. It was all saved for when company came or special occasions rolled around. People used to really lay it all out on those days.  We all knew expressions such as, “Get out the best china” or put on your “Sunday clothes”.

I knew people who zippered their furniture with custom fitted plastic coverings and only took them off on special occasions or when important company came over like a leader from the family’s house of worship or the school teacher.

Those days are behind us. We are less likely to have formal visits to the house. Today people “drop by” or come over for the hockey game or a barbecue.

There are lot of people who hang on to the old traditions these days but by and large most are smart enough not to hoard good china and use it every day. People now put their best clothes on every day. Women and men spend a great deal of time and energy to look their best every day instead of going out with worn-out clothing or rough hands and skin. I think this is just fine and commendable.

With all that said I believe that there is one “best thing” that we should all be able to present consistently. Something we all recognize is always good and even beautiful. It is the single “best thing” that you should always have out regardless of your location, your generation, your ethnic background, your profession, your age and most absolutely your mood. It is your manners.

Good manners will carry you regardless of your clothing and look. If you have good manners, you are elegant no matter where you are, no matter the time of day, the season or the circumstance.

If you greet someone with good manners, I believe you are presenting yourself in the very best way possible. If you don’t have good manners, all the money and “work” you may have spent on yourself is worthless. Good manners indicate to all you encounter that they are important to you. That is something valuable that you can have free of charge without any work or expense.

I am saddened that the general public today is jaded by false claims and cheats. We see it all over the Internet with many tricks. We also see it in other ways. We have somehow come to accept that it is normal for a service company like Bell or Rogers to put us on hold for what is an unacceptable amount of time if we have a simple question about our account, unless of course they want to sell us something. It is normal that people in the government or an institution of any kind never answers their phone, let alone returns our calls or answers our letters. It is not unusual to receive shoddy work from people who call themselves craftsmen. If we place someone in a position of trust and they steal from us today we are told it is our fault.

It is because of this that a lot of people in these skeptical times have allowed their manners and their good treatment of others to fall away. We may have all come to believe that bad manners are the norm in our society and it is somehow okay. Worse still, many people fail to teach their children manners. I worry that this is because they have lost the understanding of the value of good manners. They should be practiced at home each day.

It seems to me that everything comes down to good manners. If we don’t have and use these simple and free fundamentals of life then we are lost from here on out.

Heino Molls is publisher of REM. Email [email protected].