One More Day Alive

There’s a big difference between impropriety and rudeness — and I hope we don’t all forget the difference because there are a whole lot of great times and great people we might miss out on if we confuse the two.

Case in point: Courtney, the amiable and ever-jovial older gentleman who meets me with a ready joke and garrulous greeting every time I wander into my favorite coffee joint.

Courtney is like a character out of an old Mickey Rooney and Shirley Temple movie, only he’s taller than Mickey and has a better backhand (he’s a real whiz on the court). But he has that same “golly-gee-life-is-so-swell” personality with a dash of sporty style that makes him a real shoe-in for anybody’s friend.

After seeing the 70-something silver-haired gentleman with a teenage spring in his step bound about the shop one day talking to everyone and anyone, I struck up a conversation. I asked him why he always had a tennis racquet in his hand. He asked me why I always had a notebook with me. I explained I was a writer. He explained he was a tennis fanatic and always liked being ready to play. That was the beginning of our beautiful friendship.

Since then, every time we run into each other we talk about politics, or sports, or philosophy or religion (he’s an incredibly astute and faithful churchgoing Catholic who is probably more up on his biblical passages than I am).

Sometimes he shares stories of his wife of 34 years, or his children (the gosh-darned most romantic thing I have ever seen was him walking hand-in-hand with his wife down the street coolly clad in a college letterman-like jacket).

He’s just one of the most likeable guys in the world. So you can imagine my utter shock and dismay when I heard some guy in the coffee shop was complaining about him.

It seems Courtney has a habit of breaking the local protocol when it comes to approaching and conversing with people. In other words, he talks to everyone about everything. Sometimes he just wades into a conversation like a rowboat that lost its oars, and he doesn’t really think much about walking up to a perfect stranger and chatting.

Apparently, that ruffled the feathers of one of the big birds who frequent the joint, and he accused Courtney of being “rude.” But in the words of Montoya from “The Princess Bride,” I told the protesting patron, “I don’t think you understand the meaning of that word.”

Just to be sure, I looked it up. The definition of rude is “without culture, learning, or refinement; harsh, or ungentle; lacking respect.”

That certainly didn’t describe Courtney — the man who last week discussed Thomas Aquinas’ proof of the existence of God with me.

Or who shares his concern over the war and its casualty toll, having performed his duty and galvanized his love of country by serving in the military himself in Korea.

Or the man who openly reveals his ongoing struggle to live the Gospel’s message and never has an unkind word for anyone, but always has a smile on his face as though it were New Year’s Eve.

It occurred to me that what Courtney’s detractor probably meant was not that Courtney was rude, or disrespectful, but that he was not “proper,” meaning he was not “conforming to established standards of behavior.”

Aha! That was it. Courtney is clearly not proper all the time.

But thank God, I thought. Because I think I would go crazy if there weren’t a few salt-of-the-earth Courtneys out there forgetting to be proper because they were too busy being friendly, real and kind.

They make it a little easier to handle all the stuffed shirts.

And they make it a whole lot harder to be in a bad mood when life gets you down.

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