I saw this in the October 19, 2015 issue of The Weekly Standard; written by Cita and Irwin Stelzer. It has to do with the civilized behavior of Arizonans (my home state) as compared to where they moved from.

” We never thought we would find ourselves stocking a pantry in Arizona.  But now that Phoenix is our winter base, there we were, on line at the deli counter of a supermarket…..  After waiting awhile, we realized we were a take-a-number queue.  We … got number 61.  … a customer who’d arrived after us, but taken a number promptly, was called, she nodded toward us and told the clerk, “These people were here before me.  They just forgot to take a number. So serve them first.”

This reminded them of a trip 40 years earlier to Phoenix and Mr. Stelzer had taken his 10 year old son to a Phoenix Suns game.  When Adam came back from getting a hot dog, he said, in amazement: “no one pushed me!”

As they’ve stayed in Phoenix, they’ve encountered “have a nice day”, “have a blessed day” from store clersk and waitresses.

“Disconcerting as it was to us East Coast types, we decided that what we were encountering was civility, and we were noticing it because we were accustomed to its absence in Washington, (DC),  a place we had recently fled.”

the ….. are where I shortened their original sentences to make for a shorter post. Where I have quote marks is where I quote their article directly.