This is Life!: Revolutions Around the Cruciform Axis

Of Red Stick and Debutantes

The women and I headed south to Baton Rouge last Wednesday. We'd been invited, a couple of months ago, to a "presentation ball" by one of Anna's former co-workers and friends, Patti. Her daugther, Jacque, was being presented on Saturday, and Patti and Harold had wanted us down for Thanksgiving ever since we left Lousiana in January 2000. So, we decided to both take advantage of a trip to see warm and wonderful friends, and to get our experience of southern tradition.

It was everything we thought it would be, and then some. There were a score of young women (set to graduate high school in the spring), dressed in white wedding gowns (yes, wedding gowns) and white gloves, presented by (mostly) their fathers, in tails, and introduced by long resumes of their accomplishments--all set to Vivaldi, Strauss, et. al., attended by guests in black tie and formal gowns, and accompanied by filet mignon and wine.

An amalgamated example: A young women, dresssed in strapless white, with long gloves and pearls, approaches the arch on a largish stage. Spotlights train directly on her. Her hair and makeup are immaculate, her grin porcelain. The M.C. intones: "Christiana Suzanne St. Romain-Hebert Melancon, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Pierre Melancon, granddaughter of the late Paul-Robert St. Romain-Hebert and Giuseppina St. Romain-Hebert, and granddaughter of Joseph and Marie Melancon. She is presented by her father, Dr. Pierre Melancon. Christiana is a member of [insert about a dozen volunteer organizations], was last year a maid of the court of Krewe Germain, and this year is a lady-in-waiting. She hopes to find the cure for cancer, and to work for world peace. She will attend either Lousiana State University, Tulane, the University of Mississippi, Harvard, Yale or Copiah-Lincoln County Community College in the fall." Once all the near-two-dozen presentations had been made, the young ladies were led in a waltz by their fathers/presenters, and then joined for a second waltz by their mothers and escorts (mostly boyfriends or close kin).

Of course, I'm exagerrating for humorous effect, but not by much--as any who have attended such functions can attest. This presentation ball was different from the one that had taken place the night before. These young ladies were la jeune amie of the Baton Rouge Symphony League, a service organization in which the young women must perform a certain number of volunteer service duties over the course of their high school career. It's rather rigorous in expectation, and only rarely does a junior enter the la jeune amie and complete all the requirements necessary to be presented in her senior year. (By comparison, the ball the night before was nothing more than the presentation of the ladies, without the resume.)

But no matter how you cut it, these families were the affluent (or minimally upper middle class) of Baton Rouge, many of them with histories going, well, waaaay back. And this was the modern incarnation of the old southern tradition of debutante balls. It was a sight to behold.

For this Kansas boy, it was a fun experience. Of course, the best part was joining with Patti and Harold in an important milestone for them and their daughter. Whatever one may think of such traditions as these in our modernist era, I'm all for them, markers of the transition from one stage of life to another. We have no such markers, incarnate rituals which unite a community and help us move from one life to the next.

As a father, of course, I'm not so keen on the expense. But then again, that's all part of it, too.