Saturday, April 9, 2011

Dandy is as dandy does



No quarter is spared when this man levels his sights on you...


As a lad in Charleston, I at first chafed whenever Mama would squire me to my weekly instructions at Miss Buelah Fontaine's Palmetto Street Finishing Academy for Young Gentlemen. "Oh, Mama, must I?" I would plead. "I would much rather fish and hoop-roll and play mumblety-peg with the other boys." But Mama - God rest her overbearing memory - remained insistent, for she knew that under the stern tutelage of Miss Fontaine her son would grow into a true Carolina Gentleman, deft in the social graces and ready to ascend the ladder of societal respectability.

The evidence of time has, I hope, proven Mama's wisdom. With every thwack of Miss Buela's corrective switch, I soon learned the fine art of gentlemanliness; the Windsor knot, the four-in-hand, the gracious bow, the waltz, entering one's name on a dance card, the proper way to hold one's refreshments. By my 16th birthday I was ready to make my society debut at the 1971 Charleston Boy's Cotillion. Oh, how Mama and Miss Buelah beamed with matronly pride as I promenaded across the ballroom floor with my escort (and second cousin once removed) Miss Blanche Dwerryhouse. I like to think Daddy would have beamed at my dashing waltz too, had he not been delayed by an emergency prior engagement that magical Charleston evening
.


More of Iowahawk doing what he do, here.



Our own thoughts on Lindsey Graham's pathetically-qualified "defense" of free speech can be found here.

2 comments:

B-Daddy said...

I hope to never get on Iowahawk's radar. He kills.

SarahB said...

Boy's Cotillion? Second cousin once removed? Way too close to the mark...I'm dying!!!!