Road Apples
Sept. 21, 2009

Fall orientation at the Gaylesville Mannerly Man campus

By Tim Sanders

CAMPUS GROUNDS - The grounds are dry now, mostly, although we still recommend that those new students unfamiliar with the terrain wear rubber boots.

ATHLETICS - To answer a question that has come up more than once (seventeen times, actually): NO, WE DO NOT HAVE A FOOTBALL TEAM! We do, however, have a new Quonset Athletic Building. Mr. Durward “Flinch” Hacklespeck, Chairman of our Department of Deliberate Snubs and Insults (DSI) insisted that “if every church in the county can afford a gymnasium, then by God we can afford to get us an athletic hut!” Mr. Hacklespeck will also serve as coach of our Intercollegiate Croquet team, which will begin fall practice as soon as enough players are recruited.
CHEERLEADING SQUAD - This year’s cheerleading squad consists of Ms. Carrie S. George, who also heads up our Department of Style on a Budget (SOB). We felt that Ms. George’s inspiring ongoing battle with Tourette’s Syndrome would make her the perfect choice to cheer our fledgling croqueteers to victory. As Coach Hacklespeck put it, “CHEERS? Why she can turn the air blue with cheers!”
LIBRARY - We have officially moved our library to its new, on-campus location, dedicated the building, and replaced the wheels with cement blocks. For stability. We have no books yet, but we do have what we here at the Mannerly Man Institute like to call our “Emily Post-Its” taped to the library walls, bearing useful etiquette hints like, “Don’t Spit on the Carpet,” “Sneeze into your Sleeve,” and “Pinto Beans and Ballroom Dancing Don’t Mix!”

But enough of Freshman Orientation. It is our aim to restore manners throughout Cherokee County, and yes, eventually, throughout all of northeastern Alabama. Let us commence with the questions.

Q: I read a headline which said: “Five candidates hope to fill Senator Kennedy’s seat.” Is there a mannerly way to do this? By which I mean couldn’t they just draw straws and give the seat to the winner, and bring in some folding chairs for the other four?

A: We are not sure, but we suspect that the late Senator’s seat would accommodate at least five regular sized legislators.


Q: We went to my cousin Eugene’s funeral last week. The proceedings they went on for a real long time because it takes a lot of whitewash for a snake oil salesman like Eugene. The thing was the preacher didn’t never, not even once, say the “If any man can show just cause” thing, and by the time he wheezed out his last amen I figured it didn’t make no difference anyhow. But right there at the end they sung two songs. First Velma Oster from Eugene’s momma’s church she sang “Beuler Land,” and I had my doubts that Eugene could of found Bueler Land, even with a GPS, unless God had plenty of Jack Daniels in stock. I kept them thoughts to myself, but when Jimmy Banger got up and sang “Another Soldier’s Coming Home,” I thought that since Eugene he weren’t never in the Army, nor even in the scouts for that matter, somebody ort to speak now or forever hold his piece. So anyhow I raised my hand to clear the slate, and Francine she jabbed me in the ribs with that bony elbow of hers. I don’t think nobody noticed my hand go up, but they did notice when I hollered “DANGITALL, THAT HURTS, FRANCINE!”

A: So what is your question?


Q: I done forgot.

A: It’s probably just as well.


Q: When you’re at a formal dinner and all dressed up and everybody is wearing shoes and britches and has napkins stuffed into their shirt collars and is talking very polite with no hollering, where do you spit your watermelon seeds?

A: In polite society, people don’t spit watermelon seeds, they swallow them. Unless you swallow more than fifty, those seeds won’t act on your lower colon until you’ve left the table and are on your way home. We read that somewhere.

Q: Mr. Mannerly Man, last night I was at a church covered dish dinner. It was all very good because a number of our church ladies is good cooks, which you can tell by looking at them. So anyhow I had just got into my fried okra when the pastor who was sitting at the head of our table he raised his hand and he prayed for the food, just to be on the safe side. I was embarrassed that I’d started before the opening gun went off, so to speak, and when I tried to shake that suspicious looking piece of okra off my fork, I dropped the fork on the floor. It clattered behind my chair, and when the prayer was over one of the children he went a ripping down between them tables after another boy he wanted to whop, and he stepped on my fork and most bent it double. Should I of picked that fork up and straightened it out and used it again, or what?

A: We would advise discreetly swapping it with a neighbor’s clean fork. You may need to distract him with vague allusions to a white-faced hornet you just saw exploring his back pocket. A remark like that can drive as simple a utensil as a fork right out of a man’s mind in an instant.


If you have questions on manners and deportment, please send them in. We here at the Mannerly Man Institute will accept small, tax deductible donations to our athletic scholarship fund. We need at least three more qualified Second Degree Black Belt Croquet Masters to complete our team, which can then compete with other state schools. Remember that Croquet is the most mannerly of all sports, and nobody’s ever rioted or cleared the benches at a croquet match. At least not yet.