Keeping Up Appearances

Patricia Routledge as Hyacinth Bucket in the BBC series, "Keeping Up Appearances."

Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Boo-kay) knows the importance of appearing socially correct and a “cut above” the neighbors. Her candlelight dinners are legendary – perhaps only in her own mind. She even “borrowed” a Rolls-Royce in an effort to outdo Lydia Hawksworth who had a new Jaguar. The fact that she and her faithful husband, Richard, were arrested for doing so didn't seem to phase her in the least.

I am, of course, speaking of the hilariously funny character superbly portrayed by Patricia Routledge in the BBC comedy, “Keeping Up Appearances.” Hyacinth is constantly bedeviled by her “less than proper” relatives. Her attempts at being someone other than who she actually “is” faces being unveiled by two sisters with spousal problems, one sister who is morally “loose,” and a father who is reliving World War One – often without his clothes. All these issues come to haunt her about the time she is staging one of her social encounters with people she hopes to impress.

She sounds very Southern to me.

We had a very dear friend – a type of Rosalind Russell with a “drawl.” She always appeared in costumes rather than in routine feminine apparel. When she arrived – fashionably late – she garnered attention. Her, “Hello Dahling” would make Tallulah envious.

Once, when I was driving home, in a city across the state from where this friend lived, I spied out of the corner of my eye, a woman dressed in a kilt and with a swath of tartan flung across her shoulder. I thought, “wow, there is another Helen Barker in the world.” Intrigued, I made the block to get another look. To my surprise, it was Mrs. Barker, herself, hundreds of miles from her home on a shopping spree for antiques. I invited her home for dinner and we listened to her regale us with stories of the Edinburgh "tatoo" and her learning the "highland fling." Helen Barker wrote the book on appearances.

When, not long after her marriage to Mr. Barker, it came time for the couple to have a home and a proper address, it was not the best time with respect to Mr. Barker’s construction business. That would flourish later. However, their diminished resources would not stop “keeping up appearances.” On a hilltop on one of the best streets in their town, the Barkers built a copy of Tara from “Gone With The Wind.” From the roadway it was magnificent. However, if you were able to view it from the side – which you were not – you would discover it was only about 15 feet wide. It was a two-story façade. In order to open the double front doorway on the columned porch, you had to back up the stairway in the entry hall. It was “grand” only at a distance. No one questioned that the Barker’s always entertained at the yacht club across the street.

Southerners know the value of “keeping up appearances.”

The Monroe sisters of Quitman, Mississippi were the most respected ladies in the county. Their father had left them quite well heeled at his death, so wealth had a great deal to do with this. However, along with the wealth came impeccable manners, good taste, and a sense of fashion. Neither of them ever married, despite a retinue of gentlemen callers in their younger days. By the time that I knew them, the bloom had gone off the rose.

They lived together in the family home at one of the best addresses in town. They attended the First Methodist Church with great regularity and were known for their altruism.

Yet, come to find out, that was all a well-articulated ruse.

In truth, Gladys and Gertrude Monroe fought like banshees behind the shuttered windows of their big house.

One morning they were in a particularly heated exchange – something to do with an “old beau” that one felt the other had caused to beat a retreat; crushing any hopes of romance. As their angered discussion escalated, the “Westminster Quarters” signaled someone at the front door.

Gladys remembered she had told the Methodist preacher to stop by to pick up a check for the new typewriter she had promised to donate for the church office.

As she walked out of the kitchen toward the front of the house to greet the preacher, she looked over her shoulder at Gertrude and said, “Sister, you best zip it up, we have company. And besides, you know I am right about this as usual.”

She then continued to the parlor where the maid had seated the guest.

Well, it seems that Gertrude was not ready to “zip it up.” As Gladys spoke in her postured tone to the preacher, Gertrude, still smoldering over their confrontation about the wayward suitor, hurled a cast iron skilled at the kitchen doorway, making a noise that could be heard all the way to the front gate.

Needless to say, the Reverend Carter was startled; looking toward the direction of the noise.

Without batting an eye, Gladys hastened to clarify, “Goodness me, Sister must have dropped the set out of her ring.” In the south, it is always all about façade.

It seems that the current governor of Texas, another of the “cash strapped states” in the US with an 11 million dollar shortfall, has been “keeping up appearances” to the tune of $600,000.00 for two years temporary housing while the state manse is under repair. Mr. Perry, a Republican, even billed the state for $1,000.00 for emergency repair for his ’filtered ice” machine. He must have been expecting the Bishop.

Sarah Palin, strangely quiet since the oil spill in the Gulf, kept up yet another appearance over the weekend to discuss "immigration" issues. Same old delivery - different verbage.

She is one appearance that should not be kept.