Knock before entering

I was taught as a child that if the door was closed to a room you were to knock and wait for a response -- count to five if no response, then knock again. Count to five again if there was no response and enter. Now, why is this important? I don't know, I guess I was thinking about this because last weekend as I was dressing for the day in my bedroom with the door closed my grandson (he's 6) knocked on the door and then didn't wait and walked in. Fortunately, I had most of my clothes on -- a few seconds earlier and he would have been scared out of his wits at what he saw!

I remember as a child going up (or down) the street and knocking on a neighbor's door, waiting and then announcing who I was and going inside the house that went with the door upon which I was knocking. One day I didn't do that, because I had seen my mom just walk in to our neighbors house without knocking. Apparently, unbeknownst (that's a Drexler-ism) to me, they had an agreement that mom could just walk in. So, I just walked into our neighbors house and scared the poor owner half to death. Well, not really half to death, but I did scare her.

Mom let me know in no uncertain terms that what I did was naughty, not nice, and I was never, ever to do that again.

I don't know about you all, but I just think there's something homey about knowing someone well enough that you can just go right on in to their home without having to knock first.

Now days, though, we live in a "lock down" mode and I guess it would be difficult for someone to just walk into someone else's home, unless that someone else knew you were coming and left the door unlocked just for you. I do that. I leave the door unlocked and tell those I'm expecting to just walk on in.

I just think that's friendly.