There She Is, Miss America!

On the title song of her recent album, Pageant Material, Kacey Musgraves sings about being a southern girl who won’t compete in beauty pageants.

And it ain't that I don't care about world peace
But I don't see how I can fix it in a swimsuit on a stage

It’s a light-hearted song that echoes the sentiment of 99.9% of the female population that feels like they couldn’t win a beauty pageant if they tried. So they joke about them. Heck, we all joke about them.

Some of the ridicule heaped on beauty pageants is deserved. The reality show, Toddlers & Tiaras, was a joke. Oh, the pageants are real, but I’m guessing Honey Boo Boo will have a standing date with a therapist for years to come.

We were channel surfing we when happened up on last weekend’s Miss America pageant. In our twenty-five years of marriage, we’ve never watched a single minute of this parade, yet here we were. Seeing the pageant was down to its final half-hour, we settled in for the finale.

Bonus: Contestants from Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Louisiana were all finalists. It seemed a good bet that the new Miss America would be a Southern girl.

Double-bonus: Miss Georgia Betty Cantrell was a former 4-H’er. As I’ve written before, my wife is a former director of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension Program that oversees 4-H and, she remains passionate about its mission. For that reason alone, Betty Cantrell had to win. She must represent!  

You likely know by now that she did. But let’s double-back to the lighter side of pageants.

“It’s not a beauty pageant, it’s a scholarship pageant.” Many years ago, that line became the pillar and the defense of the Miss America pageant. “This isn’t just about parading beautiful girls across the stage, it’s a display of talent and knowledge, as well.”

Give the contestants their due. Indeed, it takes a fairly well-rounded young woman to compete on the national level. Much work and prep goes into getting your face on national TV. And the stakes are high. As the new Miss America, Betty Cantrell won a $50,000 scholarship.

But while pageant contestants may be the subjects of songs, sitcoms and silly movies, it’s the pageant – the show itself - that’s the real joke.

This year’s Miss America pageant officially apologized to former title-holder Vanessa Williams for stripping her of her crown over thirty years ago after some nude photos of her were published. Good for her that she went about her life, becoming an enormously successful entertainer (with her clothes on), but why the apology? I suspect if similar photos of the new Miss America were to surface, they would again snatch away the crown.

I also suspect that the reason they apologized to Vanessa, gave her a new crown and made her lead judge for this year’s pageant is because she won, anyway. They took away her crown, but she grabbed the brass ring. She succeeded despite the scandal. She became bigger than Miss America or ‘former Miss America’ and the pageant felt it could benefit from her star power.

Questions from the judging panel were off-the-chart odd.

To Miss Georgia: did Tom Brady cheat?

Huh? Does Miss America need to have an opinion on Deflate-gate? I don’t even have an opinion on that, other than, of course, he cheated.

To Miss South Carolina: do you support a ban on military assault weapons?

If I’m Miss South Carolina, I’m thinking, “Whoa. I’m about to lose the Miss America title because I do - or do not - support someone’s right to own an assault rifle.” That’s pretty heady stuff for 20-year old college students.

But hey, it’s not a beauty pageant, it’s a scholarship pageant. One that big chicks cannot win no matter how smart they are or what instrument they play. One that assumes you need scholarship money because that really cute bikini you wore on stage didn’t come from Macy’s, honey!

I like that Miss Colorado thought Ellen Degeneres should be the face on the $10 bill. I like Ellen. In fact, I could support any Ellen: Degeneres, Pompeo, Page, Barkin. If you’re named Ellen, you’re pretty, apparently. Though I realize it’s not a beauty contest.

Damn Yankees!

From somewhere behind us, a golf ball came sailing past as we waited for the green ahead of us to clear. We were on a part of the golf course where you always need to ride up and take a look before hitting your next shot.

“What the hell are you doing?” Pete bellowed to the offending golfer as he approached.

“Sorry, I thought you had moved on,” he responded.

That wasn’t the way Pete saw it. “No, you didn’t! You’ve been pushing us all afternoon. Can you not see that we are waiting on golfers ahead of us?”

The older gentleman who hit into us was playing alone and indeed seemed to want us to let him through, but there was simply no place for him to go. Several holes earlier, he had pulled up to us while we were teeing off, something most golfers do not appreciate. Pete had warned me that if it happened again, he was going to ask the guy to leave.

I suggested to Pete that if it happened again, he should let me handle it. He knew why. He knows he’s a bit ‘direct’ in such situations.

This is not a story about golf. It’s a story about Yankees.

It’s about people who have migrated to the South, yet retained their northern mannerisms: curt, terse, blunt. Because Pete knows he’s a little of all that, he laughed when I tried to call him off. He knew I would handle it more passively.

So why didn’t he let me? Because he’s a Yankee!

Southerners, in general, like to avoid conflict. Sure, you’ve got your factions of fighters, like drunken rednecks. But even they tend to soften up when they sober up.

Northerners, by contrast, almost seem to enjoy being combative. It’s like their way of life is to snipe at one another.

If you are born and raised in the South, identifying someone from this country’s unloved-by-God regions is simple. Just a few words from their mouth, and you’re thinking, ‘you ain’t from around here.’

And manners? Fuhgeddaboudit!

As an example, another golf story (my group has a lot of migrants). Chuck hits an exceptionally good tee shot. “Great shot!” I shout to him. He says nothing as he reaches down for his tee, so I follow-up with some gentle instructions.

“Chuck, this is the South. When someone compliments you, you say ‘thank you.’”

Chuck responded, “Why should I have to thank you for stating the obvious?”

I took out my 9-iron with the intent on teaching Tiger Woods yet another lesson but was held back by others in the group.

The word we’re missing here is ‘genteel.’ It’s a general term for being polite, respectful, graceful, refined.

Know any genteel Yankees?

It’s all about your upbringing. Just as a Southerner can thank his or her mama for raisin’ them properly - with manners, Yankees can blame their mamas for raising them to be social misfits in any place south of Virginia.

That attitude would probably lead some to think us’ns in the South are a clique, but I would argue that we are in fact different, that our interaction with others is handled in a gentler, more respectful way.

I do think Chuck learned a lesson that day: that disrespecting someone who is being nice to you can cause you to have a flat tire. Or two.

Being raised in the north almost seems to somehow corrupt the mind. It’s like they were never taught to play nice. And that never leaves them, no matter how long they live in the South. It’s ingrained.

I have a friend who has lived in Georgia for well over fifty years. He claims that after that length of time, he should no longer be considered a Yankee. Spend five minutes with him, though, and… ‘he ain’t from ‘round here.’

Wesley Snipes’ character in “White Men Can’t Jump” pretty much nailed it: "You can put a cat in an oven, but that don't make it a biscuit."