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Guest Column Each of us has power to bring back civility By DOUGLAS SPANGLER © St. Petersburg Times, published July 12, 1998 aving grown up in the '50s in the age of "duck and cover" drills that were supposed to protect us from a nuclear attack, I see a similar pattern setting in here in Pasco, except now the enemy seems to be us. We hear that preparations may be under way to have duck and cover exercises similar to the ones we had back in Indiana during the '50s -- only this time it will be to protect kids from other kids with guns. The story in the Times about honors given to Sgt. Brian Moyer, who served as a school resource officer in Pasco County schools for 11 years and was passing the baton on to his successor, took me back to the '60s. It was then that I worked as a radio newsman in Indiana. A story came across the Associated Press wire that I read during a newscast, and the story stayed with me. It was about a commencement address in which the speaker boldly predicted that parents had stopped raising their children and had passed on that responsibility to the schools and eventually the raising of children would be in the hands of the police. At the time, this was a very daring theme, especially for a commencement speaker, and there were no police officers patrolling the corridors of the schools where I lived nor pretty much anywhere else in America. The fact that we so routinely accept a police presence in our schools is a sad reflection on our tolerance for a lack of civility in our society. It is the same breakdown we see in sports, in which we see violent outbursts happening more and more with milder and milder penalties. We no longer think twice when we go into grocery stores and find everything sealed, for instance, because someone who wants to harm us might tamper with our food. As for airports, we have long ago acquiesced to a phalanx of security devices designed to protect us from what is probably the logical extreme of civility's downfall. It is not enough to bemoan the problem of our meltdown of humanity to each other, however. Somewhere, within us, there might be the beginning of a solution. I once heard a sermon in church in which the priest probably shocked several of the parishioners when he informed them that he was really in charge of saving just one soul -- his. He said that the members of the congregation were really in charge of saving their own souls. In the same way, we are only in charge of ourselves when it comes to increasing civility in life, and only by starting with ourselves can we begin to put a dent in the wall of indifference to this problem. My wife was recently confronted by a hostile man in a supermarket when he loudly said, "Do you mind," rather than excusing himself when she was unknowingly blocking his way. She surprised him by saying all he had to do was say, "Excuse me." He continued to glower, but his wife smiled, knowingly, having obviously witnessed this behavior before. Maybe, just maybe, the man might think twice the next time he wants someone to get out of his way. In commerce, each of us can also take a stand. When you encounter an unusually rude or indifferent store clerk, take a little time to mention it to management. If you doubt that any of this will do any good, let me tell you that one request for civility does have power. The demeanor of the personnel and even the cleanliness of a store and a movie theater near where we lived in another state were changed permanently simply because of letters we sent to management of the business. Such flaws in each of the above-mentioned businesses were tolerated by customers for years, and all it took was a letter to change things for the better. So, now we have police in our schools, seals on our food, and we are afraid to blow our car horns even in near-collision situations lest we have a gun pulled on us. Could we have avoided the second wave of duck and cover in our schools if someone had spoken out long ago? Who knows? But one thing is certain, a personal commitment today to civility, by each of us, is a beginning. -- Douglas Spangler, a writer and former university administrator and teacher, lives in New Port Richey. Business | Citrus | Commentary | Entertainment Hernando | Floridian | Obituaries | Pasco | Sports State | Tampa Bay | World & Nation © Copyright 1998 St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.