There is a TV commercial currently airing, it shows a lonely polar bear adrift on an Antarctic ice barge. (a metaphor for modern man) The bear seems hesitant, and disoriented tying to find his way back to land, if there is any. His paw dips into the water, as if he is testing a warm bath. The commercial is not a cautionary alert about the warming of the planet, as much as it’s about the polar bear as an endangered species. Strangely, the conditions that helped create the predicament for the poor bears are not addressed, and do not trump the consequences. Further tugging at our heartstrings, shortly into the advertisement a baby polar bear, (a cub so cute that Steiff could launch a line of stuffed animals in homage) presumably the polar bears progeny, the next generation, on which the survival of the species rests, nearly gets enveloped by the now tepid waters of the poles. We are not asked to contemplate global warming, but to help support the polar bear as an endangered species. Were it not for the sentimental voice over’s of Noah Wiley or Chris O’Donahue, two of Hollywood’s schoolgirl’s delight, the commercial would lack any comportment.
Lest I be accused of misaligned priorities, rest assured, that I’m far more concerned with global warming, and the polar bear as an endangered species, than I am with the lack of available gentleman in the community. That being said, like the lumbering polar bear, gentlemen too, are a near endangered species, do I bemoan the loss of them, or the conditions that helped create this predicament?
Granted, the gentleman in the classic sense is passé. Gentlemen and gentlemanly behavior is as dated as a davenport or antimacassar. The old fashioned gentleman is sort of dodo bird. A vestige of a time when men took women’s arms to cross the street, bowed, tipped their hat, walked on the right hands side of his escort, they said, “pardon”, and “may I be excused”. A time when it was politically correct for men to retire after their meal to read the paper, while the women did the dishes. Gentleman had an ingrained point of view, the inalienable belief that women were “the weaker sex”. I think we can all agree that few of us wish to go back to that world.
Today’s gentleman is not a dodo bird, but may be a polar bear. The comparisons are evident. Today’s gentleman is hermetic, drawn to caves, and periodically caught scratching himself. He, today’s gentleman, is surveying his territory, seeing it disappear, and wondering, do I belong, if so, where. He too is adrift, and lacks the control over his environment that he once had. He is no longer the fierce master of the species, and more the isolated, if not caged and docile bear.
The pendulum swings both ways, people may say one thing, but often desire the opposite. The post feminist/humanist view that the delineation between what constitutes a gentleman and lady should be level is altogether accepted. I’m old fashioned… sometimes. Still, I think there is something intrinsically nice about a businessman who offers his seat to an older woman, a man who waits patiently for women to enter or exit, a man who says “thank you” and “you’re welcome”.
Sometimes It Rains Cats And Dogs…
I once loved a bona fide gentleman, therefore I believe in romance. Many years ago I was at work when it began to rain; it was a fierce January rain, torrential and relentless. The day had stated bright and sunny, so I did not leave the house with my green umbrella. No one had left their homes prepared, the weather forecast only called for periodic cloudy skies. I stood by the employee exit with a slew of my colleagues who, like me, were debating the merits of making a run for it. It had been a long day, and we were eager to retreat to the warmth of our homes. There are two things, and two things only I can‘t abide, being wet, and being lonely. Then out of the driving rain far in the distance we saw a trench coated man with a black umbrella emerged walking towards the door. We wondered what poor soul it could be. As the figure approached one of my friends said, “Isn’t that your companion, Michael?” I was certain it couldn’t be, Michael was at home, in the final months before AIDS would take his life. I was dumbstruck, as he sauntered in-between a crowd of silent salespeople awestruck with his gesture, and what was about to transpire. He said something simple to me like, “I know you didn’t have your umbrella”. My heart broke into a million pieces of sunlight. He turned to the sales staff, and said, “Ladies, get home safely”. Together we left sharing his tiny umbrella.
I understand that night there was much bickering in the households of Jersey City among wives discontent that their husbands had not been gentlemen.
