Chivalry Is Not Dead!

I spend a great deal of my life in Wal-Mart. I’ve got two boys and three cats, so I shop in bulk…frequently. Today I was still bleary-eyed from my 8 yr old hosting a sleepover and trying to meet a self-imposed deadline for a short story I have been working on for the last week. It had been raining all morning, and the sun had finally come out to turn East TN into something akin to a sauna. I steered an overflowing cart across the parking lot, swearing I would never again brave the Saturday crowds. I slung sacks into the trunk, and realized since I had dropped my boys off at their dad’s house, I would be the one toting all those groceries into the house…

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of a woman pushing a cart piled just as high as mine was. A boy who looked to be seven or eight plodded along beside her. She glanced over at me as I closed the hood of my trunk, and leaned over to whisper something in the little boy’s ear. He nodded, and jogged across the parking lot. “Can I take that for you?” he asked. I told him he certainly could, and thanked him as he pushed my cart toward the corral.

I write about heroes for a living, about chivalrous men, who win the hearts of heroines with their selfless deeds. Today I saw a good example of behind every hero, there is probably a parent who taught him what it is to be chivalrous. That mother in the Wal-Mart parking lot was hoping for the same result I am when I flick my boys on the ear to signal them to offer their chair to a woman in a crowded waiting room. Chivalry isn’t just an old fashioned ideal. It’s a time honored way for young men to exhibit self-respect by extending that same respect to others.

I’m betting years from now that little boy in the Wal-Mart parking lot gets the girl, because his mother taught him the importance of chivalry.