According to my dear, crazy redheaded Mama, the end of civility fell upon my generation. Hers, she claims, had a sense of decency. “We didn’t talk the way you and your friends do. It was unheard of,” she declared one day. I was not sure what she was referring to; she thinks everything that I say is inappropriate, even when I am merely stating a fact. “What are you talking about?” I asked her, not really wanting to know. “The things you say in mixed company. It’s not proper.”