Ronda Rich

Syndicated Columnist

It was the summer before that summer when life, as we had known and worn it like a comfortable cloak around our shoulders, hit a brick wall at 100 mph.

People, afraid of catching the potent virus, stopped going to work or church. They had groceries and medicine home-delivered and some, most sadly of all, watched loved ones die in a hospital room with a tiny phone screen connecting them together in their last, earthly moments.

It was the summer before that unforgettable time, both a bonding and historical period, that will, one day, be taught in classrooms. It will seem as foreign to them as World War II and the polio epidemic seemed to my generation.

So, back when times were normal and we had no reason to believe that our world could spin backwards on a dime, my New York book agent and I had conceived an idea. My first book — “What Southern Women Know (That Every Woman Should)” — was turning 20 years old. In one of the happiest episodes of my life, I had spent five days in New York City, watching wordlessly as enthusiasm for just a book outline built into something of a frenzy. On the second day, five major publishers cast their hats into the ring and an auction began that lasted four days until my Jewish agent, determined to respect Yom Kippur, called for best offers by sundown of the fifth day when the culture’s time of atonement began.

That wonderful little book began a new life for me, helping me grasp my childhood dream: to grow up and write books.

Richard Curtis and I decided I should update the book and we’d relaunch with Penguin-Putnam as a “20th Anniversary” edition. Surely, we both thought, there was much that had changed in 20 years.

But we were wrong. The main change was to account for necessary politeness in using cell phones and a passage about wearing pantyhose was reworked – since few women bother with them anymore – and I left in a story about blue eyeshadow since it was suddenly all the rage again.

When Perigee, the imprint of Penguin-Putnam (now merged with Random House who, ironically, had fought hard to win the book at auction) needed a subtitle, some wiz in the marketing department decided on, “Timeless Secrets To Get Everything You Want in Love, Life and Work.” I shrugged my shoulders thinking it might be a little hyperbolic.

However, when I set about the task of “modernizing” the book, I amazingly discovered that everything I had written in the book was, indeed, timeless. What had worked in the 1900s, the 1950s, 1980s, and 2010s was still the golden standard today.

Kindness. It never loses its power. As one of the rules, I quoted Mama more than once, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” This is truer than ever since our world turned into a mass of bad moods ranging from co-workers, grocery clerks, friends, family, and I would add here: the phone company but the country’s biggest monopoly has been in an unsavory, bad mood since long before a virus swept with the wind across the world.

Another of Mama’s favorite admonishments, “Pretty is as pretty does” is truer today than ever before. Folks are hungry to receive courtesy and respect. More than ever – even when the phone company is belittling me – I’m able to say, “Ma’am, please. I really need help.”

Dressing up, or at least wearing something more than sweats or faded jeans and tattered shirts, is an attention getter in this world like few things we have ever seen. People might not want to dress up but they sure like looking at people who do. It is, I have discovered, a professional edge like none I have ever seen.

So, to that marketing genius who came up with that subtitle: Thank you. Truer words have never been written.

Ronda Rich is the best-selling author of “St. Simons Island: A Stella Bankwell Mystery.” Visit www.rondarich. com to sign up for a week.