Being a Southern Lady

I am sitting here with my feet on the desk, (pretty visual huh) but hey, both feet are on the ground when people are around. That is one lesson I learned very early from my Daddy," A lady never sets with her feet up and exposing parts of her body that should be private." Can you imagine, a grandma, feet up on the sofa., one leg spread to the side and the first thing you see when you look her way is the, umm, umm, ummm. Well you get the picture. In fact it just came back to me, That is exactly what my Mom used to say when we sat improperly. "Sue, you are taking my picture", LOL Wonder where that old phrase came from?.
Now to tell you how my Daddy taught me. I was sitting on the sofa with my feet up, watching Television, He was in his chair across the room. He picked up his shoe, he said and I quote, "If I ever see you with your feet up again, I will throw my shoe at you". Funny thing I knew he would too, but it was a valuable lesson learned. No amount of telling me would work but the old shoe trick did. I can still see the situation in my mind. I would like to add, He did set me down and explain why I had to set more appropritely, He was an old fashioned Daddy, Boys were not allowed to ues bad language around our Mom, They would get a stern lecture. Boys had to take the floor and girls got the chairs, We had very little furniture, At the dinner table I sat on a bench with the younger kids, That made 5 of us on a bench he built. We had 4 straight back chairs, the cane bottoms had long ago worn out, and they were covered with rubber innertube cut up and weaved on to the chairs.
So you see I do know how to do without things, I know if things got really bad I could go back to my early training and make do or do without.
Now Sher you know why I worked on you being such a lady. It was important to my Daddy and became very important to me.
In fact I think he would still somehow get that shoe thrown at me.
Yes My Daddy wanted,. no demanded demanded that we be ladies and treated as ladies. Our brothers were not allowed to toot around us or they were looked at very strongly. My Daddy never Never laid a hand on me. He said Mama would take care of us girls,
She seldom got us but she always made us go get our own switches, and it better not be a tiny little breaking one. NO hand whipping did we get. And they never counted to make us mind, we only had to be told and it was Yes Mam and Yes Sir. Got to love the respect that children were taught in the old days. I know they still teach that in the South.