Feedstore Philosophy

"Out here at T4Texas ranchette," Angus Brangus says, "we be hillbillies, but even we know that each day ain't nothin' but a chain of choices. After we walk out the front door of our shack each morning, many of those choices that we make affect other folks--folks near and far, neighbors and strangers alike."

Angus Brangus was down at the feedstore in Pert Near the other day, cussin' and discussin' with some of the local boys (Bob Wyer, Cracker Jack, Claude Hopper, Cornpone Malone, Goathead Fred) and feedstore owner-operator Maizey Daisy. The gathering was a veritable Ya-Hoo's Who of rural east Texas, out where the concrete don't grow.

The boys were lazing around on sacks of feed and bales of hay. They had started out discussing the price of grain and the need for a good, soakin' rain but then had drifted into a discussion of thoughtfulness.
"You know," Angus said as he sat on some sacks of feed, "I think it was Michel de Montaigne who said, 'Courtesy is a science of the highest importance.'"
"Ol' Michel were a Frenchie, wasn't he?" asked Cracker Jack from a nearby hay bale.
"Yessireebob, that he was," Angus said, nodding his foam dome.
"I believe," Cracker Jack said, "it was another Frenchie, Jean de la Bruyere, who allowed as how, 'Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.'"
"Right you are, Cracker," Angus said. "That's 'xactly what he did allow as how."
"And just across that bar ditch they call the 'English Channel,'" Claude Hopper said, "it was Edmund Burke who said, 'Manners are of more importance than laws. Upon them, in great measure, the laws depend.'"
"Ol' Edmund Spenser had a similar thought on that," Goathead Fred said. "Ol' Eddie, he said, 'The gentle mind by gentle deeds is known. For a man by nothing is so well betrayed as by his manners.'"
Bob Wyer nodded his head. "And ol' William Morley Punshon, another of them English boys, got to the nub of the sitchy-ashun when he said, 'Cowardice asks, Is it safe? Expediency asks, Is it politic? Vanity asks, Is it popular? But conscience asks, Is it right?'"
"Well, us Yanks have had a thought or two on that subject, you know," Cornpone Malone said. "I reckon it was Eric Hoffer who said, 'Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.' And don't let's forget ol' Ralph Waldo Emerson, who allowed as how 'Life is not so short but that there is always

time for courtesy.'"
"And don't let's forget them ol' Greeks boys," Angus Brangus said. "The dramatist Euripides said, 'The good and the wise lead quiet lives.'"
Now Maizey Daisy spoke up. She had been listening to "them darned ol' he-fools yammerin' on" as she loaded sacks of grain into a customer's pickup.
"Hey, you hayseed Heideggers," she scolded. "Don't let's forget the womenfolk, either. Remember what Lady Mary Montagu said: 'Civility costs nothing and buys everything.'"
At that, "them darned ol' he-fools" offered a smattering of "amen"s and "darn straight"s as they swatted at flies that buzzed through the feed dust floating in the slanting rays of sunlight.
"You know," Angus Brangus said, "my ol' pappy, Dangus Brangus, told me that the founders or scriptures of most world faiths--Baha'u'llah in the Baha'i faith, Muhammad in Islam, Buddha in Buddhism, Confucius in Confucianism, Lao Tzu in Taoism, Mahavira in Jainism, the Mahabharata in Hinduism, the Talmud in Judaism--teach the equivalent of Christianity's Golden Rule. Great knobs and cobs! I reckon that in any language 'Do unto others' is just another way of saying, 'be thoughtful.'"
The boys and Maizey Daisy responded with more "amen"s (and two "Salaam alaikum"s and one "Dharma rules!").
Angus Brangus's ol' pappy also taught Angus that in most situations we can test how thoughtfully we use our public--and private--spaces by asking ourselves four questions:
1. Does what I am doing at this time and in this space affect other people?
2. If it does, does it affect them negatively? For example, am I encroaching on their ability to enjoy quiet on their own property (house, yard, car), am I blighting their neighborhood with litter, am I impeding their ability to negotiate our shared spaces (streets, city parks, parking lots, supermarket aisles and checkout stands) with as little inconvenience, aggravation, delay, and devaluation of humanity as possible?
3. What is the lowest-impact way for me to do what I want to do? Certainly I am, for example, entitled to drive from point A to point B (and, on weekends, to point C), listen to my music, park my pickup, shop for my Tater Tots and collard greens, dispose of my garbage, and enjoy the companionship of my critters. But how can I achieve those personal goals with the lowest impact on others (create the least stress in other drivers, take up the least public space, make the least noise, delay shoppers in line behind me the least amount of time)?
4. What if everyone did as I do? For example, if I neglected to give turn signals, played music loudly, drove with a loud muffler, littered, narrowed the street needlessly by parking on the street when a garage or driveway was available, took two parking spaces in a lot, pushed or parked my shopping cart in the middle of the supermarket aisle, allowed my pets to disturb the peace, didn't have my form of payment--cash, check, credit card--ready upon reaching the cashier, et cetera, and everyone else did the same, would our quality of life be better--or worse?
And it goes without saying that right now, even as we speak, if somewhere in the Hill Country someone is changing lanes without signaling, if somewhere in the Panhandle someone is unnecessarily disturbing the peace, if somewhere in the Rio Grande Valley someone is blocking a supermarket aisle with a shopping cart, the lack of thoughtfulness shown is just as lamentable for those victims as it would be for Angus Brangus. Or for you. 'Cause it ain't about just him, and it ain't about just you. It's about all of us. Thoughtless is thoughtless, no matter whom it targets.

One of pudd'nheaded Angus Brangus's favorite philosophers is the utilitarian John Stuart Mill.
"Ol' Johnny Boy, he said the measure of an action's worth is the extent to which that action results in 'the greatest good for the greatest number' of people," Angus says.

"We be hillbillies," Angus says, "but even we know that the logical extension of ol' Johnny Boy's admonition to do 'the greatest good for the greatest number' of people is to do the least amount of bad for the greatest number of people.
"It's the 'T-for-Texas, T-for-thoughtfulness' thang to do."
Then Angus Brangus tapped his plywood toe as he and the boys began to sing that old refrain:
"T for 'Texas,'
T for 'Thoughtfulness,'
T for 'Thanks, y'all,
for helpin' our great state be its best' . . ."

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