ON THE TOWN:Just say ‘please’ when yelling at strangers

One of the nice things about having a history of yelling at strangers for the past 40-something years is that I will never be accused of being a crotchety old man.

This week, I saw a lady in Costa Mesa trying to grow roses through the sidewalk in front of her house. I had to assume that’s what she was doing, otherwise why would she have been soaking the cement with our precious water?

So, as I sometimes do, I slowed down my car, rolled down my window and said politely, “Please don’t water the sidewalk.”

Cleaning your sidewalk with fresh water is gluttonous. It is a pure waste of our most precious national resource, so you’ll have to forgive me if I get a little upset when I see it happening.

The day after the cement garden incident, I was stopped at a red light in Newport Beach. Across the intersection, on the other side of the double yellow line, was a sports car waiting for a green light.

As both cars waited for the green, the sports car’s window rolled down and the driver threw a piece of paper out of it. My light turned green first, so I slowly approached the pig in the sports car (Yes, a pig. I can’t think of any better term to describe someone who would throw paper out of the car onto the ground) and said, politely, “Please don’t litter,” and drove off.

And just a couple of days ago, I was in an elevator with someone. Our short conversation went like this:

He: “Did you have a good weekend?”

Me: “Great weekend. Went to Vegas and saw Elton John.”

He: “Nice. Where’d you stay?”

Me: “Caesar’s.”

He: “Ah, Caesar’s. Big [expletive] pool.”

Yes, I did it. I told the guy in the elevator that I found his language offensive. My exact words were, “Just saying that it is a ‘big pool’ would have been sufficient. It doesn’t make the pool any bigger when you use bad language.”

I’m not trying to win any medals. These reactions are simply responses to things that I believe have spun out of control.

When I see what I perceive to be inappropriate behavior, I am going to say something. I believe that it is precisely because more of us do not speak up that people feel it is okay to water the cement, trash our streets or speak crudely to strangers.

Speaking of speaking up, the KOCE debate is finally out in the open. It has moved from a discussion over saving a station that no one watches to the anger of some people over its possible sale to a Christian broadcaster.

That’s all this ever was about. Had this been strictly about money, you’d have had the big hair televangelists on the station months ago because they submitted the best offer.

KOCE could become a Christian station tomorrow and a year from now, no one would miss the current programming. And if there was such a demand, another station would step in to pick up the slack.

Besides, the web has developed or will soon develop to the point where much of KOCE’s content can be transmitted there instead of over the air.

I don’t watch Christian broadcasting and don’t know anyone who does. I have only seen bits and pieces from time to time. Most of that time, I am shaking my head in amazement that anyone could sit through an hour of it, let alone send them money.

Still, I am amazed at the fear of this broadcasting by others, many of whom would be the first ones to tell you how much they value our right to free speech.

Say what you will about the big hair people, they don’t swear on the air, they don’t wear next-to-nothing outfits and they don’t kill anyone on the shows.

So, please keep your water on your lawns, please put your trash in a trash can, please keep your bad language to yourself and please don’t criticize what you don’t understand.