It is only September, and it may be a bit early for such a concern, but November, which generally is a fine month, promises to be terrible in 2020. As our traditional month of national Thanksgiving, November has terrific things going for it. And the colors in North Georgia are magnificent.

Personal reasons make November delightful for me, and foremost is a wedding anniversary. We are disappointed that we likely will not celebrate at the location we hoped, and it may not be as golden as we anticipated. At the same time, we continue being grateful for making it this far together.

Another good thing about November is birthdays—mine and my oldest child’s. Each birthday is special, but after a certain age, the likelihood of making it to the next one diminishes. My chances have been decreasing for many years, making each one more special. I hate the idea of something spoiling the upcoming celebrations.

And there are too many spoilers lurking.

Those are selfish thoughts, but as my face-to-face contact with other people has diminished, that kind of thinking creeps into my mind. But less contact also increases my thinking about the importance of friends and neighbors, particularly those who do not have a loved one living with them—someone to talk with or give comfort during this unusual period.

Optimistic is my preferred term, but more than one friend has called me Pollyanna. Simply put, in my mind, most people are good people and will cooperate with and help others unless they believe helping others will, in some way, cause harm to themselves. And the possibility of harm is increasing.

The pandemic is amplifying my concerns about a terrible November. Don’t tell me how well we may be doing compared to other nations. What good does it do to compare how America deals with the virus when so many, many people are dying? The death toll exceeded “too many” months ago.

And we continue to politicize it—shame on us.

And politicization is my other big fear about November. The pandemic and the complications it will bring to voting and vote-counting mechanics make November 2020 potentially more indecisive, and therefore scarier than any other in America’s recent history. Politically driven divisiveness stoked by both parties reduces the likelihood of conclusive election night, week, or month, or worse.

Indecisiveness is not a traditional American characteristic. How we grew so divided that we cannot move forward is a good question, but it has no value unless we use the answers to solve it. And we are not going to solve it if the people we elect continue focusing on reelection. And they will continue doing that as long as we, the people, continue to let them tell us that people who look or think differently from us are our enemies.

September 2020

Even though I am old, I am neither a fogey nor a prude. There are many things I miss about my personal “good old days,” but I do not want the country to be like it used to be. I am perhaps a tad more prudish than fogeyish. Despite my attitude, I still believe civility is important.

As a social norm, civility helps societies function. Those norms change, but for the past couple of hundred years, certain words were not for use in public. They are words we collectively identified as vulgarities, obscenities or profanities. We do use them, but there are situations where we do not. There may, or may not, be consequences for people who do, but the offense is disruptive.

We use words to convey what we think and want others to know. In mid-January, we experienced a vivid example when the president used, in his words, “rough language” while talking about immigration.

The media and diplomatic uproar his word choice caused illustrate that what we say and how we say it matters. His supporters want to deemphasize the significance of his word choice, and they accurately say his language is how ordinary people talk in barrooms. Some have said locker rooms.

But, the halls of government are neither locker room nor barroom. The White House is America’s home. The president is not an ordinary American; he is America’s representative to the world.

I do not believe ordinary Americans use such words in their churches or supermarkets or their homes, except for dramatic emphasis—or they have no other words at hand. Such words are not ordinary, and when they become ordinary they lose emphasis

Obscenities and profanities are omnipresent and loud in locker rooms. Locker rooms are places where competitive demonstrations of prowess and superiority are common. In locker rooms, people boast. They ridicule opponents. They taunt fellow competitors, and teammates. In locker rooms, people express their frustrations, most often vocally but sometimes physically. Locker-room-talk is social in a specific environment.

Barrooms are less competitive places. People go to bars to relax, socialize, argue, commiserate and share intimate thoughts. Yes, some people boast or pick fights. There are people for whom a bar is a place to get drunk or to get into a fight. Those people are not the norm, and they make other patrons uncomfortable.

The free flow of obscenities and profanities and outrageous opinions in locker rooms and barrooms is integral to making those places refuges from the rest of the world, but the atmosphere makes them alien to those who disapprove.

There is a critical element common in both environments. People are speaking for themselves, not for others. Unless someone makes it known he is a representative, those around him can be confident they are hearing an individual opinion. No one expects the talk, especially the specific language, to go beyond the room. Only in recent years has the language of locker rooms and barrooms, and the military moved beyond those places. It was not a language for public places, and certainly not something you would want your mother or your children to hear you utter.

I have vivid memories of my father’s reaction to words I used on my first leave from the Army. He convinced me that what we say, and the words we use to say it, are indicative of who we are. With each decade since his lecture, I have come to believe his argument more deeply.

Although we have loosened our standards for acceptable language, there still are places where barroom and locker room talk are out of place. Meeting rooms are one example. In meetings, everyone represents something or someone beyond themselves. Being a representative includes the burden of decorous behavior and speech. Otherwise, meetings devolve into chaos.

Behavior and language in a business meeting are of concern to the business, not the public. Government meetings are different.

At all levels of government, expectations about language and words are higher because participants are not speaking as individuals. Every person present is conducting the business of a constituency, and participants can reasonably expect their conduct and their language to become known to their constituents.

Failure, or refusal, to recognize those expectations and adhere to norms disrupts the exchange of ideas and creates a shockwave of distraction from the problems at hand. It is impossible to address the problems of governing when everyone’s attention is focused on the furor over what the leader’s unusual word choice means.

I am neither a fogey nor a prude. I love the vividness of our language, its softness, and its harsh shock value. The words we choose to convey what we think, and they can convey our deepest beliefs, particularly in emotional moments. I do not want to see the effectiveness of those words diminished by moving the language of the barroom into the living room.

The words we choose matter, but the place and the context in which we use them matters more.

We do not need a national military parade to display our strength. We know, and the world knows our armed forces present the most powerful military in history. Their deeds speak. People in other nations may parade more than we do, but I don’t want to hear about that. Hey, parading is not about competition, is it? Unless you count victory parades.

I love parades. Doesn’t everyone? My gut tells me Americans parade so much and so often, no one can know how many are taking place on any given day—unless there is a secret bureau of parades keeping track via social media posts.

For a brief time, I did not like parades. Decades ago, I arrived in town for a new job. Less than a month later, the boss “invited” his staff to a Chamber of Commerce Veterans Day breakfast. At breakfast, I learned he expected us to walk in the parade, which was to start soon. I was dressed for breakfast—in a restaurant—not for standing around on a cold, wet morning waiting to participate in the parade I had intended to watch—in proper shoes, coat and hat.

Community spirit in that town was palpable. People lined the streets for parades on every special day. Businesses and charities, and service clubs and scouts paraded with school bands. Close order drill teams, ROTC, and units from nearby military bases, national guard and reserve units marched with firefighters, EMTs, and police. But they were not military parades. The closest thing to an exception was a parade celebrating and honoring the first Gulf War warriors’ return home.

Community parades with military units marching along streets lined with stars and stripes are organized displays of love of country, but it is the energy and devotion to country among the people that matters every day.

I know the president admires those grand military parades in other countries, but I hope he will not impose one on our armed services, who must obey orders.

If he is determined to order a marching spectacular, I suggest he look instead to the executive branch. Each of the political appointees is beholden to the president for the job they hold. Surely, it will not inconvenience them to parade for the boss. I did not like it, but I did because I needed my job. I got over it.

If they choose not to—because there is something they want or need to do, like a wedding anniversary, a child’s ball game, or recital—they can say no. Being good Republicans, they can always find other work, especially now that the economy is great again.

Marching is not walking. Marching means cooperating and accepting your place as part of something bigger than yourself. It means working in sync, even with people with whom you disagree—or hate, and at a time you need to be doing something else. Lack of marching experience among appointees may present a problem. But they can learn on the job. Lack of experience did not prevent many of them from receiving their appointments.

If a parade comprising only executive branch appointees is not large enough or doesn’t measure up to the president’s desire for grand spectacle, I suggest he persuade the Senate and the House of Representatives to join in. Of course, they could not manage it without their staffs.

Unlike the current commander-in-chief and Congress, our military has nothing to prove—to anyone. However, both the executive and legislative branches have much to prove to Americans and the world.

Instead of a physical exhibition of our military’s weaponry and organizational competence, presidential appointees and Congress can take to the streets and turn the spectacle they already are into the greatest live TV special ever. Broadcasting it via the Armed Forces Network would be risky—especially the pre-parade activities—because we may not want our warriors to see firsthand how unorganized and uncooperative those two branches of government are, among themselves and with each other.

Senator David Perdue has said, “Personally, I would prefer not to do it. But he’s the president.

Senator, I encourage you to explain to the president why you prefer not to hold a national military parade. Please tell him those orderly, parading arrays of uniformed warriors and machines do not just happen because he wants them. Military parades take dedication to a common purpose, precise planning and cooperation, and a willingness to sacrifice ego and become one among thousands doing your assigned task—without personal glory.