Displaced Beachbums

When I lived in Atlanta, back in the early nineties, I was invited to a beautiful, southern society wedding. Along with most of the wedding plans, the bride’s mother took care of the invitations. I was surprised to receive an invitation without a response card. You know the card I’m talking about ~ they are pre-printed and you fill in the blanks, some you fill in the number attending, etc. There’s even a pre-addressed stamped envelope to make it easy for the invited guest. And yet, some people can’t even manage to send back the idiot proof card.

I was so used to being hand-held through the RSVP (Please Respond) process that when I received the invitation with not so much as an RSVP printed on it, I asked around as to how the family was going to plan for the number of people if they didn’t ask for an RSVP. That’s when I was politely “educated” on etiquette. If you receive an invitation, you respond whether or not they request it. It’s the polite and proper thing to do. 

Getting people to RSVP has been a big problem for hosts for many years. Perhaps they are young like I was and don’t know better. Although my parents talked to me about basic table etiquette, I don’t remember a lot of talk about parties, etc. But there is also another set of people who know better and just can’t be bothered. With Army events, some people are on invitation lists due to their spouse’s position and the invitee sometimes is “bothered” by all the invitations. As though making a call or clicking a button on the evite is really such an effort.

We recently had an event held by another unit and when the RSVPs didn’t come in, the coordinators thought we should all have a class on etiquette to include how to RSVP. Hmmm…how are we going to get someone to a class who can’t even be bothered with picking up the phone and saying “I won’t be able to make it.”

As a hostess, RSVP etiquette is very important for planning purposes. I hate having extra food just in case someone shows up unexpectedly. Even in these crazy, busy over-planned days we all have, no one is too busy to respond properly to an invitation. If you think about it, it’s a matter of respecting that other person’s invitation, their time and their money.

Years ago, I knew someone who gave her invited guests THREE chances. If she didn’t receive an RSVP within three invitations, they were deleted from her invitation list. A little harsh perhaps but it certainly saved her a lot of party-planning frustration.  😉

Usually CCD (Confraternity of Christian Doctrine ~ Catholic Religious Education) teachers are moms or dads who have children in the class. FM and I were a little unusual because we started teaching prior to FG being born and it was the scary Confirmation class. Scary because we were dealing with twenty 9th graders who sat a little too close to each other and also had very introspective questions.

I felt compelled to teach because of the strange way it came about. I had been attending a Bible Study class at the Ft. Riley church and the teacher had talked about using our “gifts” such as singing in the choir if we had a good singing voice or being a lector if we enjoyed reading in public. I came away from the class thinking I don’t really know what gift I had to offer. So I said a prayer: “God, let me know what my gift is and I will do my best.” I kid you not the very next day we received a call from our local church (no association with the Ft. Riley church) who we had just registered but hadn’t put down any volunteering. As inadequate as I felt to teach the class, I knew I couldn’t say no. The phrase “Be careful what you wish (pray) for” kept coming to mind.

Since then, I’ve taught the 2nd grade First Communion Class twice, third grade and the fourth grade twice. I wasn’t planning to teach this year because we had just moved here and I wasn’t feeling all that great. I missed the outdoor picnic Mass in August when they were signing up teachers. FM and FG attended the picnic and FM took the liberty of signing me up.  I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect but because I had a great substitute to cover me while I recovered from my surgery in November, I agreed.

I’m so glad I did. My eleven students are wonderful and have been a joy to get to know. There are a couple of kids who really don’t want to be there but it’s more because they are tired and hungry during class. That’s an advantage to having classes on Wednesday nights instead of early Sunday morning.  

One of the things we do at the beginning of each class is to VOLUNTARILY tell something that someone did good for you or something you did for someone else during the previous week. If a student had a good deed to share, he/she got a sticker.  Community Service good deeds got two stickers.  Now that the end of the class is coming up soon, I’m getting a little gift for each student depending on the number of stickers they’ve accumulated. There was one student who got the most stickers and I got her a much wanted Webkinz. It’s all the rage with this age group. Now, I have no idea what to get the rest of the class. I have three ranges of collected stickers ~ under 10, 10-15 stickers and 16-20 stickers.  Both boys and girls are in each category. Any suggestions?

I’m moving on with this class next September and will be teaching the 5th grade. This is the first time I will have the same students the next year. It’ll be great to have a consistency already established. One thing I need to get through is my CCD teacher certification. It’s an online course and a lot more intensive than I expected. After all these years of teaching, I’ll be happy to have a certification to make me “official.”

I’m always impressed by those who can meet someone once and forever remember their name.

That’s not the case with me. I’m especially thrown if the person I meet reminds me of someone else, then the other name is stuck in my brain. And when we move, I do a mental purge of excess information ~ names of acquaintances, my previous address, phone number, zip code, etc. 

FM and I were discussing how much FG loves to read and, for the 100th time, he asked “Remember that girl at the Graf church who read all the time ~ what was her name?” And for the 100th time, I said “I don’t remember her name! Just say the girl who read all the time.” I can see her as clear as day but no name comes to mind. And sadly, I can’t remember her parents name who we actually went to the same dinner parties on occassion. 

Funny thing is, I bet the mom of that particular family remembers my name. After meeting her the first time, she called me Pam. Well, I didn’t have a chance to correct her and thought: No need to correct her, we probably won’t socialize together outside of church.” Well, besides church, I saw her around town a lot. I finally had to correct her and let her know my name wasn’t Pam. Color me awkward!

While we were in Germany, I worked for a General who remembered everyone’s name and what an impression that made on all of us. It set the tone for the type of leader he was and his respect for his subordinates (us) was so obvious and, in turn, we would have walked on burning coals for him. Since the previous General, after two years, didn’t know the name of the person across the hall, most of us gave him about the same respect he gave us. Not only did he not remember names, he didn’t seem to even try.

FM is more like me when it comes to names ~ it takes work to remember names. And the bad part is, in his current position, people know his name before he’s introduced to them. By association, they also know my name. It’s a definite disadvantage but I’m trying!

I’ve even resorted to using those memory tricks when I meet someone. The most important being no trick at all but: PAY ATTENTION closely when introduced to someone.  Easier said then done at an event with 100+ people.