DEAR MISS MANNERS: When a couple marries, each gives the other a ring to wear on the left-hand ring finger signifying to all that each is a married person. I lost my beautiful wife just one year ago yesterday. We would have had our 55th wedding anniversary in June of this year.

I am still wearing the ring she gave me on my left-hand ring finger. Because I'm now no longer married, but widowed, would it be proper to move the ring to the right-hand ring finger, wear it around my neck on a chain, or just -- what?

To clarify, I have no intention of ever marrying again, but I would like to find a companion with similar tastes for entertainment. I do not want to show any disrespect to my former wife, as I loved her so much.

GENTLE READER: Yes, yes, please don't upset yourself. This is one of the extremely rare cases in which etiquette forgoes its usual dictatorial ways and advises you to go by your own feelings. There is no rule requiring or forbidding the widowed to remove their wedding rings.

Lest you think Miss Manners is deserting you, she hastens to assure you that she does have something to contribute to the subject. Etiquette not only makes rules, but it presides over the symbolism system, so it is her job to explain the symbolic ramifications of whichever choice you make.

Your wedding ring symbolizes your marriage, which has sadly ended in your wife's death, so it would not be disrespectful to remove it. It also symbolizes your love for her, and that is why the widowed sometimes choose to keep wearing their rings.

However, others, as well as yourself, will be reading that symbolism. If you are seeking simple friendship, the rings would serve as notice that you mean nothing more and do not intend to remarry. If you are seeking a romantic attachment, it would be only polite to keep the ring from public view to avoid its reminding another lady (and everyone you both know) that she is of secondary emotional importance to you.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My dilemma started sometime ago. I knew this guy in high school and was quite smitten with him. My feelings for him were very strong at the time, but we lost touch. His 10-year high school reunion was last year, so I started to look him up. I discovered that he died in 1992. Is it appropriate to contact his family to offer my condolences, or is it too late? I would really like to pay my last respects and let them know how fond of their son I was.

GENTLE READER: It would be an extremely kind thing to do. Forget whatever you have heard about closure in grief. Miss Manners assures you that these people still remember that their son is dead, they still think of him all the time, they still miss him and they would be highly gratified to know that someone else does, too.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My husband and I are aware that when dining, etiquette dictates that gristle is placed on the side of one's plate. However, I think that it is unappetizing and downright disgusting to stare at gristle (mine or someone else's) at the dinner table. How can something so gross be proper?

At home, I ask my husband to place his in a napkin and dispose of it in the garbage. When we are dining at a friend's house or a restaurant, I ask him to keep it in a folded section of his napkin. He humors me, but believes I am breaking the rules.

Is my modified rule acceptable, or am I simply too squeamish? Who thought up this rule?

GENTLE READER: The Etiquette Council's Subcommittee on Gross. It is pretty squeamish itself, and ran from the room at the thought of opening a napkin for the laundry and finding chewed gristle in it.

Miss Manners does not advise trying to coax the council members back by saying you were planning to use a paper napkin. They are squeamish about that, too. Their parting advice was for you to trim the meat in the kitchen as best you can, and refrain from staring into your husband's plate.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: At Wimbledon time, we're always subjected to the sight of American tennis players bowing or curtseying to the royals in the box! I thought it was inappropriate for Americans to bow to foreign royalty under any circumstances. But my co-workers tell me it would be very bad manners for the Americans not to do so because the tennis players are not there in an official government capacity.

I say it doesn't make any difference. I recall a flap in Washington some years ago when the wife of the American ambassador to Great Britain was photographed curtseying to the queen, and she was severely criticized for it. What do you say?

GENTLE READER: Miss Manners blushes to have to say that she is the one who caused that flap, back in her days as an intrepid young reporter. She thought it her duty to reassure the nation that we had not, in fact, reverted to colonial status, when we would have to bow down before temporal leaders.

Although your co-workers are quite incorrect, Miss Manners cannot agree with you that it makes no difference. This gesture is not an ordinary bit of foreign etiquette one might adopt out of courtesy when traveling. It is a sign of obeisance. Even the British do not perform this to any royalty but their own. Americans do not properly bow to any royalty. We show respect for other countries' leaders the same way we do to our own, except that we give them the added courtesy of not telling them how to run their respective governments.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my mother died of cancer, I had a lovely service for her in her church. Her "beau" of 26 years had a reception following at his country club, and graciously accepted thanks from my daughter and I, and from the guests. Now, he has come to me and asked me to pay half the cost.

When she was dying, he had asked me to return the custom-designed diamond ring he had made for her early in their courtship. He said that some of the stones had come from his first wife's ring. My mother was too lost on morphine, too weak and only able to say "yes" or "no," but she still understood what was going on.

How should I respond to these requests? The estate is small, under the taxable limit, but I expect that I, as the sole beneficiary because I am the only relative, might be considered to have "money to pay" in this case.

GENTLE READER: "Money to pay off" might be more the way to think about it. What this person is practicing is a sort of social blackmail: He is asking for things to which he is not entitled, knowing that embarrassment will cloud your thinking.

Note that this is an etiquette opinion, not a legal one. Socially, one cannot appoint a co-host retroactively, nor claim back presents whose sentimental claim to the giver has just been recalled after 26 years. So, there is no question of propriety that should make you feel pressured to do this. But you should find out whether he can make enough of a claim on the estate to make a further nuisance of himself.

Miss Manners' own inclination would be to pay for the entire wake, out of contempt for his participation in it -- in exchange for a binding agreement that he not continue to annoy you -- but to keep the ring -- to annoy him.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work with a group of women who have a question about communication with our new boss. He has a very serious stutter that occasionally makes some of us uncomfortable because we do not know how to respond. When he gets "stuck" on a letter for as long as 15 to 20 seconds, do we continue to make eye contact, look at the ground or try to finish his sentence for him? Please help with some advice on communicating with someone who stutters.

GENTLE READER: Are you telling Miss Manners that 20 seconds is too much of your valuable time to waste waiting to hear what your boss has to say? Especially since you can apparently anticipate everything he is going to say? More to the point, is that what you want to tell your boss?

Miss Manners would think that prudence would suggest, as politeness requires, that you maintain eye contact with your boss when he is addressing you. It is the content of what he says, not his stutter, that requires a response.

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