No Way to Treat a Lady

Vanities

A southern belle tells

THE sweetening process that feminists call "socialization" is known in the South as "rearing." If the rearing is successful it results in that perfection of fastidious gentility known as a Southern Lady. I was reared. The ladysmith was my grandmother, a Virginia grande dame who put on her hat to go out and get the mail.

Expecting Granny to keep away from an unformed blob of female material was like expecting a cobra to ignore a flute. The moment I was bom she moved uninvited into my parents' home with the intention of "staying awhile' ' to help my mother. She stayed twenty-two years. Never has a child's formative period been covered so thoroughly.

There was no escape from her, because we shared a room. My training for ladyhood began with the duets we sang in bed. "They don't write songs the way they used to," Granny said darkly, citing "Body and Soul" as an example of degeneracy. To keep me from "going bad" when I grew up, she taught me the hits of her youth. Every night, while she crocheted and I crayoned a coloring book, we gave forth with earnest concerts. "Her mother's heart is broken / And her father's never spoken / As they sit beneath the picture / That's turned toward the wall! " No matter what topic of conversation arose. Granny could get a training lesson out of it. When the Winnie Ruth Judd trunk murders dominated the headlines, she said, "You'll never find a lady in a trunk. ' ' When I practiced my oral book report on Joan of Arc, she interrupted with "She may have been a saint but she was no lady. ' ' Sometimes she could be subtle, however, like the day we ran into Mrs. Winfield downtown: "She dyes her hair but she ' s very nice. "

In the realm of sex, she was philosophically closest to Saint Jerome, who believed its only purpose was the creation of more virgins. Granny believed the purpose of sex was the creation of more Virginians. She refused to tell me what happened on a honeymoon, but she took the opportunity to deliver a sermonette on honeymoon etiquette: "Be as pleasant and cheerful as possible, and remember to exclaim over special treats."

Certain things a lady simply did not do. If I am not a feminist it's because being radicalized by whistling construction workers is an academic point to a woman who will not even walk past a firehouse. No lady walks past the firehouse when the firemen are sitting out front with their chairs tilted back against the wall, because you never know what they might do. You see, being around so many fires overheats their blood. That's why they tilt their chairs—it relieves the pressure on their private parts. So always cross the street.

In the South, women who touch men are called "lint pickers." A lady never touches a man except while dancing or when taking his arm at a crosswalk, so if you spot a bit of lint or a loose thread on a man's sleeve, leave it there. You see, a woman's touch, just her merest touch, makes a man dissolve in lust, so if you go around touching men, people will say, "She's a lint picker," and then you'll have to move to New York.

This sort of thing went on until October 17, 1958. On that memorable day as I sat with Granny in the nursing home, 1 happened to put my feet up on the high hospital bed and let my skirt drop open. Weakly, she turned her head and rasped, "Don't sit like that. ' ' They were the last words she ever spoke; she died in her sleep about half an hour later.

Was my rearing successful? Of course. No matter which sex I went to bed with, I never smoked on the street.

Florence King