Comportment in Texas

The Peace and Justice buses rolled out of Camp Casey, Crawford, Tx. on their way to Washington, D. C. They stop along the way to rally the people, and rally they are!

However, while Cindy Sheehan ended her heartfelt rally in Austin, Tx. attended by 2,000 supporters, she set out to meet with Tom DeLay, who declined, citing that she did not "comport" herself well enough for him to fit her into his very full schedule. I spent a week with her, I completed endless comportment classes in Texas when I was a pre-teen/teen,and, Tom, I have some serious questions for you.

Comportment was a big deal in Texas when I was growing up. We learned to stand in front of groups and articulate, sit with legs crossed at the ankles, wear clear finger nail polish and white gloves. We were trained to set a beautiful table with proper settings of silver, china, crystal, in the proper order, and, in Texas in the 50's we learned that our sterling silver pattern for our hope chest was a signifier for our entire persona! (See the "Twelve Patterns of the Southern Silver Zodiac," A Southern Belle Primer, or Why Princess Margaret will Never be a Kappa Kappa Gamma, Marilyn Schwartz, 1991). We learned the fox trot, the two step, the samhba, the rhumba, and yes -- even the Methodists -- the cha cha. We had program dances, where the boys signed our dance card for each dance, except for one dance when the girls asked a guy! Oh, Drew, how you held me at the age of 12 -- stiff, but hey! It was thrilling.

And I bought into it, Mr. Delay. I was a beauty queen, looking for scholarship to put me through school (unlike those who "had it made.") Runner up to the State Miss America title, I lost my boyfriend to the winner. Well, that was then, this is now. I eventually got through school. We were not taught to question things back then.

At 56 years old, I am making up for it.

So now, I would just like to clarify some things with you, Mr. Delay, whose former life was as an exterminator (purportedly concentrating on bugs). I do not question whether such background qualifies you for the position of Majority Leader of the House of Representatives of the United States, just as the position as head of the Arabian Horse Association might have potentially prepared Michael Brown to be the FEMA director. That one didn't work out too well, but it is a thought.

All of this said, I have a couple of questions about comportment, Mr. Delay. I never had exterminators' children in any of my classes, and we were serious about comportment where I grew up in Lubbock. I am not attempting to place judgment on the profession of exterminating, but to wonder about your placing judgment on the comportment of a woman who is a Catholic Relief Worker, mother, and, from my own experience -- the real deal. So I just have a couple of questions.

Did you attend comportment classes in Texas, Mr. Delay? Is that where you learned to demand/command your private table at restaurants, call out the State Police to chase law makers to New Mexico(against the law), engage with groups that have now been indicted for hiding corporate contributions that facilitated the changing of district boundaries to suit your purposes? Is that where you learned to do the back room deals that have been exposed of late? Unfortunately, with the disaster in New Orleans and the South, business will be desparately good, and you have all of the contacts.

Did the comportment classes teach you to be the "hammer?" You must have been in some other comportment class from the ones I attended. In my classes we learned gentility, respect, and to speak the Queen's English -- "for-ead" instead of "Foore-Head" for the area above the eye brows. Fore head, so crude. So slick.

The second question that I pose, Mr. Delay, is who might have been in your comportment classes who might verify your attendance? In my childhood there were three groups of children who were sometimes traumatized by their parents' professions -- ministers', exterminators' and morticians'. I was a preacher's kid. While I did not know any exterminators children, as I have said, my comportment classes did include the children of morticians, who were quite wonderful people who carried the burden of "those who are marked" along with me. While my folks took care of preparing for the "great beyond," the morticians were actually PREPARING for the other realm. Making way for the transition. Not creating the transition through killing. Extermination vs. mortician.

I am glad that I met those kids who many times followed in their parents footsteps. I dated one guy in high school who drove an ambulance and worked in the morgue. He was a gentle spirit, preparing folks for their transition with dignity, if, in fact, he first could not help save them. He entered the Navy in 1967 and I heard that he was killed in Viet Nam. He was a good kisser, but I don't remember much more. I wonder if he had a girlfriend or wife by the time he died. Or maybe even a child.

As I watch the New Orleans tragedy, I honor those who have stepped up for the grisly and dangerous task of preparing the dead, and am glad that I shared comportment classes, dances, and kisses with them.

I wonder about sharing the same with exterminators. What do you call the area between the eyebrows and the hairline, Mr. Delay? Just a small thing, but important all the same.

Watching your comportment in the congressional realm has not made me more comfortable. Not at all.

I am available to discuss comportment, Tom. Just email me at your convenience. In the meantime, I think I will stick with Cindy!

Thanks, and if your schedules opens up, let me know. I will have my gloves on.

EC