God Save the Sweet Potato Queens (2 page)

2

Aftershocks

 
S
ince we did offer
The Sweet Potato Queens’ Book of Love
not only as a personal testimony and mission statement about living the Queenly life, but also as a guidebook for our fellow Queens everywhere, we have been absolutely delighted with the quantity and the enthusiasm of your responses. I’d say readers’ responses are split evenly among the following subjects: the Redheaded Man, the tiaras, the obituaries, child rearing, and the Promise.

And that brings to mind our discussion of bizarre sexual adventures from
SPQBOL,
notably the one involving the Redheaded Man Who Would Not Move. That story struck a chord with quite a few women across the country. I was in New Orleans at a book signing, and right in the middle of everything, this darling woman came up to me and just blurted out, “Was that guy named James?” I begged her pardon: What guy? “That redheaded guy—the one that wouldn’t move!” Before I could tell her that I didn’t know his name—that much, at least, had been held in confidence by the Queen who related the tale—she went on, “I swear I bet it’s the same guy! I fell for it, too! He still doesn’t move!” Now, I have no idea if it’s the same guy or not—on the one hand, it seems like an impossible coincidence; on the other hand, if it’s not the same guy, it could indicate a trend, which would be disastrous for us all.

In the same vein, I heard from a woman in California whose own personal “Redheaded” experience was with a blond German guy with a real German name like Ludger or Adolf or something. On their third date, he did the thing about “How many partners have you had before me?” and she, without guile, responded, “Oh, a couple dozen, give or take,” and nearly died when he said that if a prostitute counted, she herself was number two. She married him anyway and things deteriorated from there. Apparently he was uneducable, and she just got bored blind. “Wham bam danke ma’am” was how she described it. He was stunned, literally stunned, when he discovered her copy of the
Kama Sutra,
asking her, accusingly (as if she had written it herself), “Do you mean there are more than three positions?”

My good friend Bill Fitzhugh, a book writer his ownself, sent me a newspaper clipping from somewhere in Africa where a bunch of pissed-off women had stormed a police station demanding that the cops either make love to them themselves or get up off their butts and shut down the illegal drinking establishments that were rendering their menfolk impotent. The paper said this gang of women literally shut down business in the town for a whole day with their protests against excessive drinking by their husbands and fiancés. The women said the population of the district was falling as a result of the poor sexual performance of the men, and they demanded that the police either have it off with them personally, find them new husbands, or shut down the illegal pubs. It was not reported how the police chose to respond; would that come under community service?

Many of you have experienced the thrill of wearing your tiaras in public. Nothing quite compares in my estimation—it just gives you a lift. A delightfully wise woman in my church, Miss Bettye, was a much-beloved schoolteacher for many years at an inner-city school. One Sunday she told us this story: Once upon a time, Miss Bettye had thick, thick red hair (it’s still red but not so thick) and she wore it in a style that was called a “double bubble,” and she had a bow pinned in between the two bubble sections. While she was going about her business at school one day, a little girl stopped her and asked, very solemnly, “Miz Bettye, do you know that you have a bow in your hair?”

Yes, of course she knew that. “Well, you sure don’t
act
like it,” the child replied, still deeply earnest. How, then,
should
one act if one has a bow in one’s hair? she was forced to ask. “Oh! You stand a little straighter and hold your head just so, and every now and then you reach back and give it a little pat, because it’s
special
. And if somebody put a bow in your hair, it means YOU’RE SPECIAL.” Of course, we were all bawling because none of us had had a bow put in our hair in so very long, but, you see, that’s the point: putting the bow in our
own
hair and knowing how special we are. A tiara works the same way: You know you’re special, and everybody else acknowledges you’re special, too, when you wear one. Even carrying a tiara in your take-on bag to the airport gives the security bag inspectors a little thrill. After all, how many tiaras are they even likely to inspect?

Katherine Gilmore, precious girl, scarcely more than a Tater Tot really, wrote that she and three of her buddies had smuggled their tiaras into their college graduation. The other girls got busted pre-ceremony by a woman so un-fun-loving, it is entirely possible she had made a pact with the devil to Cease All Fun on Earth. She didn’t even allow them to wear cute shoes under their gowns. I call that harsh. But our intrepid Katherine smuggled her own tiara in under her gown—along with a roll of tape tucked in her panties (which were, of course, pretty)—and as soon as she got her diploma and got back to her seat, she whipped out the tiara and taped it to the top of her mortarboard. All the faculty members, with the notable exception of the party poopette, wanted their picture taken with her after the ceremony. I couldn’t be prouder if I’d raised her my ownself.

As happy as it makes me to hear such stories from like-minded women, it is positively thrilling to hear from like-minded men. It tells me there is yet hope for the planet, and I am all for keeping hope alive. I offer this touching story—yet another from the annals of the Only Man We Ever Really Loved:

He has a daughter named Anna and he is a very good (read: doting) daddy to her. He (with significant help from her mother) raised her right—in all regards, but especially where the subject of pageants is concerned. Meaning that, while it is demeaning to have our beauty judged by strangers, as Southern women it is our birthright to be the queen of some food group as long as we don’t have to walk down a runway in a swimsuit to get the crown. And so it came to be that Anna was far away in a New England boarding school and found herself in a funk and did what all girls should be able to do: She called her daddy. And he did what all good daddies should do: He fixed it. Fixed it right on up by picking up the phone and calling his buddy the Agriculture Commissioner, Jim Buck Ross. At that time in Mississippi, this act was the same as calling up God, but Jim Buck was known for much more of a hands-on, definite yes-or-no response than we have come to expect from God. Baby Anna was in a state and needed cheering up of the most immediate kind, and our hero—okay, I’ll tell you this much, his name is Jim—decides that what Anna needs is to be named the Queen of Something, and Jim Buck was nothing if not a queen-maker. Overnight, Jim Buck decided he would make Anna the queen of the largest event sponsored by the Agriculture Department, the barbecue cooking contest; the crown was hers if she would agree to wear the whole entire title. And that is how Anna became the first ever Miss Hog Wild in July. That very story was the tipping point that put her into Princeton and, of course, made us even wilder about Jim—hog wild, as it were.

I was happy that so many of you shared your stories about what I like to think of as “the lighter side of death.” A young man told me that his grandmother had lived with his family for many years during his childhood and the woman was just mean as a snake. She bore down especially hard on his own mother, never allowing herself to be pleased by any of his mother’s near-constant efforts to make her happy. One time in particular stood out in his mind, when his mother had shopped and shopped, in the formidable Mississippi heat no less, for this particularly pretty pink pantsuit for the old biddy. To show her gratitude for the effort and the gift, the old biddy cast it aside, declaring in that gravelly old biddy-voice of hers that she “wasn’t about to wear
that!
” To which his mother said, through clenched teeth, under her breath, as she walked away, “Oh, you’ll WEAR it all right.” And so guess what the old biddy was buried in? Tee-hee. She wore it that day, and we can dig her up a hundred years from now and she’ll STILL be wearing it.

Our most favorite, most important Wannabe, George, told me he was at a gathering recently and asked about one of the guy’s moms, who had been ailing of late. The friend then explained that he had gone by the nursing home to visit her, as was his habit, and she seemed fine. When he arrived home a little later, however, there was a message on his voice mail from someone at the home: “Your mama took a turn for the worse, so we called her doctor—and the coroner.” Fortunately, this event had taken place long enough before that the friend was not disturbed when George and everybody else with a mouthful of liquid at that moment spewed Pepsi all over the room. It reminded me of my favorite joke of all time, so far. Sister goes on vacation, leaving brother to care for her cat, which promptly dies on his watch. Sister calls to check on cat, is told bluntly that cat is dead. Sister berates brother that this is not the way to break such catastrophic news, that he should have led with something like “The cat’s on the roof and won’t come down,” and over a period of days, he could deliver updates such as the cat fell off and got hurt, and the cat was at the vet’s and the cat was not doing too well, and then, after a suitable period of time allowing her to be prepared for the worst, he could then break the news that the cat was, in fact, dead as a boot. Brother was irritated but grudgingly agreed to be more considerate in the future. By and by, sister goes out of town again. Calls home to check in with brother, who says, “Mom’s on the roof.”

Knowing how I do love a good obituary, Sue Olson of Alameda, California, wrote to tell me that she and her sister had decided to go ahead and write one for each other. The following is what Sue has planned for her sister, René, should René make her departure ahead of Sue. This alone should be enough to make René live forever.

CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS—René (Wanna) B. Castillo passed away at a local Big K. She was trampled in a massive crowd that was rushing the store for half-price Christmas items. It was one day before her fortieth birthday.

René was a huge fan of Whataburger, so she will be buried in the company colors, orange and brown. The family is trying to get one of those paper hats for her to wear for the viewing.

René was also a lifelong member of Weight Watchers. Alas, she never reached the lifetime-member status, but she went to the meetings all the time. (Usually right before going to the drive-through at Whataburger.)

Her darling younger sister, Sue (who looked like she just spent a week at one of those California spas), said the family was devastated, but life goes on. “I’m sure René would want us to be happy, so that’s why I’m taking her new graphite-blue Lincoln Town Car,” Sue said.

The funeral will be held at the local Elks Club. Burial will follow at Seaside Memorial Park. The family tried to get a plot close to slain Tejano singer Selena’s grave, but after discovering the prices, thought a view of the groundskeeper’s shed would be much more fitting for René.