Casual may be in vogue, but when we sweep courtesy out the door along with the ties and shined shoes, we are cheapening ourselves individually and not saying much good on a larger scale.

Take some of the picks for where to site stops, or PokeStops, for the Pokemon Go game. Among the locations are memorials, including one in Boothbay Harbor, and the widely discussed choice of Arlington National Cemetery. In Wiscasset, we’ve heard of ones near Red’s Eats and Castle Tucker but so far none that sound off-base. Email any others in the Wiscasset area to news@wiscassetnewspaper.com.

As a Poke-Illiterate, I don’t know why people would want to be seen in public Poke-interacting. But then I’ve never understood why many concert-goers and other event-goers would rather view the experience through a smart phone or other recorder instead of watching it directly, with only space between them and the entertainment. Then their memory could be of that instead of the memory of watching it on the handheld screen.

Pokemon Go has no place being played around a memorial or cemetery even if it’s in the spirit of encouraging visits to those sites. Siting and playing the game there is disrespectful, and a disruption to those who are there to learn, and to honor. That’s the larger issue. But while on the topic, how about less virtual living in any form, Poke or otherwise, when we’re out and about? A bus ride might seem like down time to play on an app, but why not watch the world go by through the window or ask a fellow passenger where they’re headed, or if that’s a good book they’re reading. Conversation may be a lost art, but it is waiting to be found.

Wiscasset and its neighbors abound with beauty, from the waterfront on a blue-sky day, to Lincoln County Historical Association’s Pownalborough Courthouse in Dresden and any of the area’s preserves Phil De Vece has walked for our readers. Let’s relish it, directly, and maybe even talk to others who are also taking the time to take it in.

Pikachu can wait.