The curtsy is out at Wimbledon. One of the last vestiges of good manners and tradition — gone the way of the dodo bird. Will clothing itself be the next to go? Will the players romp naked before the queen?

So it goes. One last toot upon the horn and the walls come tumbling down. Alaric is at the gates of Rome, mocking the inhabitants huddled within: “The thicker the hay, the easier it is mowed.”

But our civilization hasn’t been overrun by barbarians. We’ve embraced barbarism ourselves. Tennis — once a game of sportsmanship and etiquette, of dignified players attired in immaculate white — long ago become a game of shrieking infants prancing around in the motley of clowns.

It’s a wonder anyone watches tennis anymore, with its lack of violence and sex. The fault is ours. When McEnroe retired we missed his tantrums and complained that Pete Sampras was too tame.

Of course, tennis was doomed. Democracy calls for the triumph of boorish behavior and bad taste. The arbiters of standards have lost their nerve. Professional wrestling has set the tone for our times.

The world was different when I was growing up. I had to pass my mother’s ruthless inspection before I could leave the house. The family name would have been besmirched if one of her friends discovered me on the Country Club Plaza with my shoes unshined or my hair uncombed. A lad caught without starch in his collar or a crease in his pants would be doomed for life. If he failed to say “please” and “thank you” it would be remembered on Judgment Day.

A photo of the old Kansas City baseball park, circa 1950, shows a sea of male fans all wearing fedoras, white shirts and ties. In those days, a proper uniform was taken as evidence of the purity of the soul. Back then, people dressed up in their “Sunday best” to go to church. These days they show up in T-shirts, shorts and jogging shoes and take their coffee into the pews.

In seventh grade, before the tea dance, our principal opined, “The only acceptable form of physical contact between a man and a woman before marriage is ballroom dancing.” Today, we debate whether kindergarten is too soon to start having sex. Roseanne Barr grabs her crotch while she sings the national anthem at the ballpark. Is nothing sacred any more?

I thought I’d become immune to shock. But the other day I passed a billboard that proclaimed: “The (Unmentionable) Monologues.” I passed swiftly from shock to vertigo. A review of the performance said the actors beguiled the audience into chanting a word that was once so forbidden we sincerely believed that uttering it would turn you into a pillar of salt. Is nothing taboo any more?

I should have seen it coming the day I caught a kid spitting into the hotel pool where I was doing laps 30 years ago.

“It’s a free country,” he said when I confronted him. Of course! That’s what freedom is all about. The inalienable right to spit in swimming pools. That’s what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they threw off the British yoke and penned the Bill of Rights.

But please don’t write me off as old-fashioned or a prude. I don’t judge. I know that all values are relative, that Superman is as good as Hamlet, that Chateau Lafite is no better than Thunderbird, that “the deer and the dachshund are one.”

Far be it for me to argue that my childhood was some Golden Age. We were repressed, neurotic, sick. The sight of an uncovered table leg made us swoon. I’ve tried to change. I’ve tried to let it all hang out. I just can’t quite get used to living like a baboon.

And I admit I still have inhibitions. I feel uncomfortable wearing my pants below my knees. I still hold the door for a lady even at the risk of being called a chauvinist pig. I still recoil when I hear the b-word word that designates our hindmost part. It was once the nadir of vulgarity. Today it’s in the newspapers and on everyone’s lips. It’s de rigeur. The standard according to which all other vulgarities are judged. Gone the way of the dodo are “rump,” “posterior,” “derriere,” “fanny.” But then, all euphemisms are gone.

Perhaps the queen brought it on herself. Her royal family members, with their tacky soap opera scandals, haven’t exactly distinguished themselves as ambassadors for decorum. What was the curtsy originally but a sign of subordination to some barbarian who became king by killing all his rivals off? Nevertheless, God save the queen.

No one can stand against the tide. Still, I try to uphold a few traditions in the privacy of the home. My children are required to address me as “Your Highness,” “My Liege,” or “Mighty Suzerain.” They must kiss my slippers and prostrate themselves before me when they have some request.

Doubtless they think it’s a little silly. But they know that if they fail to observe protocol, daddy will pronounce his dire fiat: “Off with their heads.”

— George Gurley, who lives in rural Baldwin, writes a regular column for the Journal-World.