Interview with Mrs. Clare Marie Crane

Elizabeth Henderson:

My name is Elizabeth Henderson. Today is Thursday, May 30, 2002

Clare Marie Crane:

Hello, my name is Clare Marie Crane. However, at the time that we are talking about, my name was Clare Marie Johns.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Mrs. Crane, what was your maiden name?

Clare Marie Crane:

My maiden name was Clare Marie Morrison. I had it for 21 years.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Where were you born?

Clare Marie Crane:

I was born in Cleveland at St. Anne's thaternity Hospital.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Where did you live?

Clare Marie Crane:

I was raised in the West Side of Cleveland- a section of area by West Park and Kamm's Corner at Lorain and Rocky River Drive.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was your family background?

Clare Marie Crane:

My family background was that we thought was middle class, working people. My grandparents emigrated from Germany in the 1890's. My mother and father were business people. My mother was a bookkeeper and my father was a purchasing agent.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was your educational background?

Clare Marie Crane:

I attended kindergarten at George Washington School. And I attended the elementary eight grades in our Parish. Then I went to Notre Dame Academy for four years and Notre Dame College for Women for four years. I have a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts and Economics.

Elizabeth Henderson:

When the war first started, how did you first begin to help on the Home Front?

Clare Marie Crane:

I was in my junior year of college and our Dean of Women asked me to participate in the USO program.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was this soon after America joined in World War II?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, it was early '42, after Pearl Harbor December 7,1941.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Were you with anybody during the war years?

Clare Marie Crane:

Actually I married in '43 and traveled as an army wife for 5 months.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was your spouse's name?

Clare Marie Crane:

I was married to Second Lieutenant Herbert G. Johns (serial number 0-861194).

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was his wartime occupation?

Clare Marie Crane:

He was a graduate of Case School of Applied Sciences and Western Reserve University. And he went into the army Air Forces as a communications officer, doing mostly radio work.

Elizabeth Henderson:

When were you married?

Clare Marie Crane:

I graduated on May 23, 1943, and the following Saturday, May 29, I was married. It was completely unplanned. There were alot of girls who were engaged and getting married. The time was right for them.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Where did you travel with your husband?

Clare Marie Crane:

We left from Cleveland Terminal and went to Chicago. If was beastly hot that Decoration Day Weekend. Then we started to travel west on an old steam train called The Challenger. It took us four days to travel west and finally ended up at Salt Lake City, Utah.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Where did you live during your travels?

Clare Marie Crane:

During our travels in Salt Lake City and then on to Tucson, I was the person who had to go out and find the quarters for us to live in. My husband, all he had to do was go to base and check into the bachelor officers' quarters so he had shelter and food, but I had to make the arrangements to find a room.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Where [sic] there any humorous stories involved?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes indeed, (laughs). When I was in Salt Lake City, most of the people there- the townspeople- were Mormons and they'd ask me, "Are you a Mormon?" and I'd say "No." Then they dismissed me right away. I caught on to it, and when they'd ask me if I was a saint, I would say "No, I'm not a saint but my husband is" (laughs).

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you have a hard time finding housing in Salt Lake City?

Clare Marie Crane:

Salt Lake City was a very beautiful, clean city with alot of Victorian type large houses where they had second floors and third floors. While I was in Salt Lake City, I lived with a woman named Mrs. Whitehead. She actually was a 60-year-old lady with white hair. At first the rules of the house were: You couldn't wash, you couldn't hang anything outside, you couldn't iron, you couldn't have food in your room and you couldn't have visitors. But I was there probably about a week, and they'd say "Oh, if you want to wash, go ahead and wash. If you want to put something in the refrigerator, go ahead and put something in the refrigerator." So I got along very good with the landlady. I tried to be very neat.

Elizabeth Henderson:

I remember you telling me about the passes you had to carry around with you.

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes. When we traveled down in Tucson, Arizona, we were to be stationed at Davis Monthan Air Base. There was a big influx of people into Tucson. There was a big Navy contingent at the University of Arizona and load of airmen at the Davis Monthan Airfield. They had only three constables in the town, so the whole police force was just Military Police- the town was under martial law. I know I probably pulled a big boner, but [I was] trying to get near the air base. So I got on this bus, and I was going towards the airbase and I imagined that I would see a sign "Welcome to Tucson, we have a room for you" but this did not happen. And we were pulling onto the airbase, the MP's were coming on the bus to check passes. But I didn't have a pass! So the provost Marshall came in a jeep and hauled me away to some type of military establishment. I told him that my husband was here on the base and that he was going to bring me over to introduce me in a couple of days. So I told him his name and a few minutes later, a Lieutenant came in and he said "I never saw this woman before in my life!" and here it was a Lieutenant Johnson instead of a Lieutenant Johns. But I did get photographed and fingerprinted and did get my pass.

Elizabeth Henderson:

While you were in Arizona, did you have any activities you were involved with over there?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well actually, I had a little job. During my high school years and college years, I worked in a dress shop so I found employment in a dress shop where I lived. And I could even walk right up to the dress shop, which was at Broadway and Country Club Road.

And it was interesting because we had alot of starlets from Hollywood. They would make motion pictures right behind the little shopping area near the dress shop where I worked. The movies, which were Westerns, would be filmed out on the desert. And they would come in to buy their handbags and lingerie and jewelry, And of course, when the servicemen were paid, they'd come in to buy gifts for their mothers and friends.

Elizabeth Henderson:

When did you move back to Cleveland?

Clare Marie Crane:

We came back to Cleveland in October of '43. And we did this because my husband was being shipped from the Pacific area to the Atlantic area We knew then that he would be going toward England.

Elizabeth Henderson:

When you were in the Cleveland area, how did you serve in the War Front Effort?

Clare Marie Crane:

Our Dean of Women asked me to go to the USO and look out for our girls who were going to serve as hostesses. They picked me because I was engaged. They did not want any of the girls falling for men in uniform; (laughs) It was called "khaki wacky."

Elizabeth Henderson:

What type of activities were you involved in?

Clare Marie Crane:

We did a lot of things. We served food, mostly doughnuts, coffee, sandwiches, and whatever pies and cakes people would bring in. We had an area where you could sing around the piano, or dance, or play records. There was an area where the servicemen could go to rest, wash up, and in the meantime we would press their blouses or middies. And we had a job also because of the Port of Cleveland. Whenever Navy personnel came in, they would have the name of their ship on their headband, and it was thought that this was not a good idea that everyone know what ships were in port. So we would rip the headband off and just throw it into the wastebasket and put on a headband ribbon that therely said U.S. Navy. I wish now that I had kept some of the ribbons. What a momento [sic] those would be.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What sections of Cleveland were you very active in?

Clare Marie Crane:

Our USO was the main one located at East 6th and Prospect, about three blocks from the Public Square. And we did have a USO in the Terminal Tower Building, but that was mostly for servicemen who were waiting after hours for their trains to go out.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What hours would you work at the USO?

Clare Marie Crane:

We would go in around 7:30 in the evening and stay until 11:30 and then we would leave. There was to be no dating of service people. Sometimes we would come out, and they would be waiting for us. We would walk them to the square and show them where they could get shelter in the terminal USO and then my girlfriends' father would drive his car around the square to pick us up and take us home.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you ever interact with prisoners of war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes. There was a time when my younger brother was a patient at Crile Hospital in Parma, Ohio. For 16 weeks, I went out and visited with him and with the other people who were being treated. And sometimes I would even talk with the prisoners of war. When they had some free time, they could use the gym or use the swimming pool. And I would talk in German to these prisoners of war.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What struck you the most about these prisoners of war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Their youth. Just that they were nice young people so far from home and lonely.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Why did you decide to go into the USO?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, I had two brothers that were going into the service and of course my fiance was in the service and I had a lot of friends who were going into the service. As a thatter of fact, in our recreation room, I had a huge map of the United States, also the Pacific area and the European area, and I would put little pin points wherever I knew a serviceman.

Elizabeth Henderson:

In your graduating class, were there any tragedies that occurred because of the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, one of my friends, her name was Virginia Donahue and she was married-I believe it was in June- and her husband was stationed, a medical officer, in Hawaii. We thought, "How wonderful! What a grand place for a honeymoon!" She did not have any children at that time, but she was the kind of person that liked to do things, so she was driving a group of children either to or from Sunday school on Sunday December 7. The enemy planes flew over and strafed the open car she was driving. She and the children perished.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Didn't you previously tell me about the first Clevelander to die in the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, the very first Cleveland man who died in the war was Ensign Hallorin and he was a June graduate from Annapolis stationed in Hawaii. His family lived in Saint Ignatius Parish, which is at West Boulevard in Cleveland. Even though it was Sunday, some of the neighborhood women came down from the parish and told us that one of their young men had perished as one of the first Clevelander to go into the war. And they did eventually honor Hallorin with a park at Lorain Road and about West 110th. I believe they had a skating rink there at one time. It is a neighborhood park.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was it difficult seeing all of your friends going away to war?

Clare Marie Crane:

No, because we realized it was a cause that had to be fought and people were united in the effort to see it through. Too many people had suffered- the people of Poland, Holland, Belgium, France, and England- it was our turn to do something.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you find that that in your community everyone worked together?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, the home front was very active. We had Victory Gardens, which supplied us some nice things because there was a rationing of food and gasoline and other things like leathers and metals. And the Victory Gardens- everyone pitched in from the schoolchildren to the really older citizens. Then a lot of the older men in the neighborhood became air-raid wardens and we would have practices- thank God (laughs)- alerts. But still they were scary. I mean, it was night and it was dark and there was no light showing and the sirens were going. It was a scary time. It was a serious time.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What kind of civil defense and homeland defense was there?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well I believe they had a number of air raid shelters but I don't think they were used because we were never attacked from the air.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was your reaction to December 7,1941?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, we were overcome by the fact that our Navy was practically destroyed and that it was what others called a sneak attack. It wasn't anticipated. Nobody was ready for it The men who were stationed in Hawaii were enjoying a Sunday! And then all of a sudden, this attack. The planes on the ground were destroyed and the battleships were destroyed and thousands of sailors were lost. We still commemorate the Arizona and the young men who were on that ship. They reported that they literally had to climb over bodies to get out. And when they did get out to a deck, they had to dive into a sea of burning oil. And then they could spend maybe 6-8 months having their burns repaired. So it was a devastating attack.

Elizabeth Henderson:

So, you were completely behind the war effort then?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes! And my grandfather who was a German immigrant served through two world wars. The First World War and the Second World War. He was 75 years old and was called into his shop. He was a machinist by trade, and he knew the machine tool industry. So as the different shops converted to do army work, he was called back in for his expertise to set up new machines.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was your family very involved in the war effort?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, at different times, my older brother had to go and he left behind a wife and a little boy about 2 years old. And of course, my mother was extremely worried with her two sons gone and with me being so concerned about the people that were gone. I had in-laws that were very supportive and friends- girlfriends. I wrote letters to people in the Pacific and over in the European Theater and I had a friend in the Aleutian Islands. You don't hear much about the 1000 day war in the Aleutians. But he spent time in a cold tin hut there.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Could you tell me about the Aleutian Islands' 1000 day war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, this chain of islands runs very close to Japan and they had to—someone had to be there and protect it and watch over it And these people were stationed there basically just to guard the islands and save the Eskimo Americans.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did he survive?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes. Well, that was a very lonely place to be. I used to send him a lot of art supplies and he used to enjoy making drawings of what they call the Northern lights and the midnight sun and some of the different people- the native people- the Eskimo people.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was it very difficult having your husband overseas? Did you write alot of letters?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes. (laughs) I tried to write about every other day. I can remember how we would watch the mailman go down the block and then turn around and come down our side of the block and we would just sit by the window and wait to see if his shoes would turn up our walk. And if they did, we would get so excited.

Elizabeth Henderson:

You must have alot of letters from him.

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh yes. I must have around 500 letters, some v-mail and some airmail. You could send a regular letter for about $0.03 and an air letter was I believe $0.06.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Can you tell me about V-mail?

Clare Marie Crane:

V-mail was something to expedite your letters- to get them over to the service people quicker. They had two post offices- one was in New York and the other was I believe in San Francisco and you would purchase this sheet of paper and you would write your letter on one side, fold it up and write the address on the other side. The postal service would photograph it, reduce it to about Va of the size, and men send it off overseas.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was there a lot of censorship?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes. My husband censored his own letters. He was very careful not to mention anything he shouldn't mention. Some young people tried to have a code to say where they were, but I don't think it really worked (laughs). Everybody was going to the "Salisbury Cathedral" and we were supposed to know exactly where that was in a foreign country, (laughs).

Elizabeth Henderson:

Besides being active in the USO and helping out with the war effort, how would you entertain yourself?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, we always had the movies. We had a movie house in downtown Cleveland that hourly ran war news pictures and we could keep pretty much up to date with what was happening. They would show bits of a battle and then it would be made into a newsreel.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you look forward to the newsreels or were they difficult to watch?

Clare Marie Crane:

They were usually on an upbeat theme. And, of course, they had alot of wartime movies. They had movies about Jimmy Dolittle and the boy next door and alot of different movies about the airplanes and about the ships and the submarines. You've probably seen some of them yourself.

Elizabeth Henderson:

I have a question about your wedding. What was your wedding like? Because it took place in 1943, was it difficult to plan because of the rationing?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, since my mother had a dress shop, it was not a problem to get a dress- a wedding dress. Not the one that I would have probably picked (laughs) but it was there and I could use it We serviced alot of weddings at that time. And I just called up my girlfriends and told them, and I said- we all had little semi-formal dresses- and I said "Just wear one of your pretty semi-formal dresses." And they had different colors. We had one girl in yellow, one in aqua, and one in peach and I was in white of course. And it was a beautiful wedding and in a brand new church. Our parish had built a brand new church and the first wedding was supposed to in June. But I sort of sneaked in and had the wedding in the end of May(laughs). So I was the first bride in the new church.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Can you tell me about the signs you had in the window, with the "V" and the three stars?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh, yes. When servicemen went off to the war, their parents or spouses could purchase a little flag emblem that you would put in the window and it would have however many stars. First we had one star, then two stars, and then we had three stars, because my husband and two brothers were in. And then, if one of the soldiers perished, they had an embroidered gold star that you could affix over it. And they probably have something like that today, but the one I have is 60 years old. (see artifacts)

Elizabeth Henderson:

I notice that there is a gold star on yours.

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, that's true. It was - my husband served all of '42, '43, '44, and half of '45. And they were processing him to go to Japan. The war in England had ended May 8th and they were processing them to go to Japan. There hadn't been any talk of any furloughs for them to come back home before going. I guess nobody knew of the plans for the atomic bomb. It was all secret stuff. But it was during this process when they were giving shots to go to Japan that they discovered my husband had leukemia. And it was a rapid illness- he died within ten days of the discovery. So I actually got the telegram that he died before I even knew that he was sick. So that was a very sad time for us. I had to tell his older parents—he was the youngest of the family. I had to tell his mother and father, who were in their late 60's. It was a sad time for them.

Elizabeth Henderson:

I remember reading the chaplain's letter. That must have been comforting to receive that from him.

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, and I must comment on the Red Cross. When we got the telegram that he had died at Gander Field in New Foundland, the Red Cross let me have a phone call all the way to St John's Newfoundland to talk to the base there. And they assured me that it was a military funeral with all honors. From his dogtags, his religion was noted, so he was able to have the last rites of his faith. He was in repose there until '47 or '48 when they finally abandoned that cemetery and brought him to Arlington National Cemetery.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was that difficult?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, at that time, his mother, sister and I went to see that internment at Arlington Cemetery and then I went back twenty years later and that was my second visit to Arlington Cemetery. At that time, we saw the grave of President Kennedy.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you know any other young men who perished in the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, no, except for those who were ill at Crile Hospital. Many of them were nervous, upset- I don't know what the medical term was- maybe psychosothatic. My brother for instance was only 18 years old and he was assigned to a flame-thrower. This was an apparatus that was attached to a half-track. They would run it up to the woods, and shoot flames into it and it would burn up everything. He was so upset about it that he developed a series of sties and his eyes would be swollen shut. When he was at Crile Hospital, he had sixteen sties and after they treated him for 16 weeks. Then peace was made with Japan. He was discharged from Crile Hospital and he didn't have to go to his base in Texas. He is now 75 years old and he has never had a sty since then, (laughs). So it was probably all nerves.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Didn't you tell me that there was something interesting that happened the day of your brother's graduation from military school?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes. He graduated from military school—Campion—in Wisconsin. It was D-Day, June 6th, 1944—the same day that General Eisenhower's son John graduated from West Point. We always remember that the General couldn't be at his son's graduation but we were able to see our brother and son graduate.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was it like on D-Day? On V-E Day?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, there was a lot of celebrating. People downtown were blowing horns and throwing papers out of the windows. They were generally just, you know, being happy. And everyone would say to me, "Aren't you happy that it is over?" I would answer, "Well, it won't be over til mine come back."

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was it difficult because though there was a lot of celebrating, alot of young men did not return?

Clare Marie Crane:

That's true. Though the war in Europe was over May 8, my brother didn't return home until December 8. It took him seven months to be processed and brought back to New York.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Was there a lack of social opportunities because of the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

When you would go into Cleveland, you just would not see any young men. There just weren't any—and if there were, they were in uniform. Even some of the big hotels in Cleveland did not want the women to congregate and come into the dining rooms or some of the cocktail lounges because they wanted to reserve that for the male military personnel. We had alot of Navy personnel in Cleveland. We had alot of army personnel. We had offices of price administration. It was embarrassing for these men to have to be in contact with so many women who were unescorted (laughs).

Elizabeth Henderson:

What was your most memorable experience during the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Family get-togethers. We had every generation. We had a youngster 2 years old that was our pride and joy and happiness. And we had the young wives together and we had the mothers consoling one another and the fathers stepping up and doing some of the harder work—the yard work and the county work—and work that you couldn't get tradesmen to do. Everyone was doing his or her part.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Didn't you say that your grandpa would have service men over?

Clare Marie Crane:

Oh yes. Old Dutch. All the service members when they came back to Cleveland would want to visit Old Dutch. Because my grandfather came from a place in Germany that was on the Holland border and they had many cultural ways of the Dutch people. As a thatter of fact, in my grandparents' garden, they wore their wooden shoes like rubbers. We would save up all our ration stamps for Sunday night and we would get cold cuts, spam, and different things to make sandwiches and we'd have coffee and pastries—whatever was available. And we always used canned condensed milk because that sweetened and colored the coffee. They had a regular open house on Sunday night for any service people.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you learn how to improvise with meals and clothing during the wartime?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, actually I had a project while I was in my senior year at Notre Dame College. I was in a home economics tailoring class and just before my older brother went off to the war, he had bought himself a lovely Glenn plaid suit. I said, "It's just a shame that it is hanging there doing nothing." So we retailored the suit and out of the pants I was able to get a four-gore skirt and the jacket we just had to take out some of the padding and manipulate the back seams. We made a suit over for me. They photographed it and it was quite a to-do wearing my brother's suit.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Did you find creative ways to make the meals stretch?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, well if you had a Victory Garden and say you had as many as twelve vegetables in your Victory Garden with some of the vegetables and even a small amount of meat, you could make a pretty good soup or stew. We didn't have any supermarkets like we do today—we had a neighborhood butcher. Maybe you dealt with this butcher—your family—for 15 or 20 years and he would take care of you. You would go in, maybe on your regular shopping day and he would have three little parcels. You didn't even tell him what you wanted, but he'd have something for you. Maybe a little bit of chicken or a little bit of pork or sausages or bacon or something—he'd have three little packages for you. It used to be a riot, because my grandmother would go into the butcher and she would always want to cook a five-pound roast. And she (laughs) she would order this roast and then he'd ask for the ration points and she would hand the book to him and say "Here, take them out of here." Well there wouldn't be any in there, but we had a connection with a restaurant and my mother would always tell this restaurant when we were celebrating Fish Day. So they would give her the extra meat ration stamps. And she would give them to the butcher to make up for what grandma would order, (laughs).

Elizabeth Henderson:

What do you think was one of your most humorous experiences during the war?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, do you remember how Winston Churchill used to give the "V" sign? Well, like I said, my grandfather had no accent at all but my grandmother had a tittle bit of an accent. And in Germany there are no "W's" Their name was "Walters" but it was pronounced "Volters". And if you remember the "Volksvagon", not "Volkswagon". So anyhow, "W's" were always pronounced as a "V". So we would say to her, "Grandma, do you know what that V-sign means?" She would say, "Sure. Yeah, sure." She'd say "Ve vant to vin." (laughs).

Elizabeth Henderson:

Speaking of that, did you worry that our side would not win?

Clare Marie Crane:

No. No. Never. We have the industry, we have the know-how, we have the talent. We had the raw materials. There was no way. we are a gifted country.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Do you think that the rest of the nation had that morale?

Clare Marie Crane:

Yes, mm-hmm. Pennsylvania could produce more coal and more steel then any place in the world. We could turn out automobiles and we could turn out tanks, planes, and shipping boats. It was just to get the effort going.

Elizabeth Henderson:

Do you think that despite the difficult time, good came out of the war time period?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well yes. I have had a good life since then. I had to reconstruct my home life. But I went on to marry again and have seven children, home, and retire and to have a reasonably good life.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What happened after the war had ended?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, when the men came home, so much was needed because all of the efforts went to making war materials. People were living doubled up in housing for three or fours years. Everybody wanted to go to the suburbs. Every fellow coming back from the service needed a new car. Many had an old car when they went in [the service] and it was used up. Everyone needed a car, people needed refrigerators—everything was booming. Everyone wanted to move to the suburbs. There was construction and that is where you get all the suburbs.

It was such a long time before the fellows came back. My brother that was released from Crile Hospital, we had him back right away. They had all types of programs to help these men. He went to John Carroll University and picked up his studies under the G.I Bill. We had very good legislation to help these men. They had Veteran's Villages where they would build housing. And they had college funding. So everyone was ready to get on with their lives.

Elizabeth Henderson:

How do you look back on those times?

Clare Marie Crane:

Well, if I could live my life over I would gladly, except I would not want to experience the 1940's again.

Elizabeth Henderson:

What would you like to say to the next generation? Do you have any words of wisdom to impart?

Clare Marie Crane:

It is true—we were the greatest generation. As we came after the roaring 20's and the gangster era. We grew up in the hard times of the depression years 1930 to 1937. We knew how to win and how to make do! Credit was no temptation—we had cash before the purchase. Prices seemed fairer. Products had more value and durability.

There should be more courtesy and hospitality and social grace. Everything seems too casual. So, be polite. Be refined. Be the best you can be.