My wife and I recently moved to a small town in Pennsylvania, and we've always lived in cities prior to this. We just had two episodes in the past two months where random strangers lashed out at us in public for not letting them go first. She is Asian and I am white and we are in out thirties. She is getting self conscious that this may be happening because we are an interracial couple in a largely white community. I am wondering if there is just a greater expectation in small towns that younger people give older adults a wide berth and let them go first? 

The first episode happened while we were leaving a restaurant. My wife was leaving through a glass door that opened out, and there was a women who looked about 65 years old on the other side. My wife went through first because the door opened out and then held it for the woman. The woman scolded her saying to "learn some manners." I was several people behind, and it looked like my wife was there alone. I caught right up and asked the woman what happened. She told us, "She should learn some manners and let me go first." I told her to lighten up, shrugged it off, and we left. 

The second episode happened today. We were leaving a business while another woman also looking about 65 years old was walking up the path in the opposite direction to us. She was walking slowly as if she might have had arthritis or some other condition that made it difficult for her to get around. We were walking quickly and we cut diagonally in front of her to get to our car, passing about three feet in front of her. She was walking so slowly though that she did not have to slow down on account of us. In fact, if she were to turn towards the door she were headed for rather than walking straight down the right hand side of the sidewalk, she would have had an unobstructed path. She scoffed as we went by.  It was almost like a hiss. We looked back at her out of surprise, and she was glaring at us over her shoulder. 

In all of our years living in various cities, while we have put up with our share of rudeness, we have never experienced anything like this. Is there some unwritten small town code that we should be giving older adults a wide birth and always let them go first? 

I like to think it might just be that these are nasty, self centered people who we encountered, or maybe we are just inconsiderate city people on the sidewalk, but I don't know. I know there are a fair share of people who are openly racist here. In my work it's not remarkable or uncommon to see people with nazi and white supremacist tattoos and I know there are some kkk members around here. Knowing that they are there is one thing, but somehow it would bother me more if that is why people have lashed out. 