BY SALLY SHEKLOW
Sister Act
Cotton candy can be a drag.
I
n 1982 Eugene, les-
bians were feeling
our feminist oats,
surging toward equality,
and coming out in droves.
Back home, my family
avoided my queerness as
much as I asserted it.
That was the year my
blatantly heterosexual
sister was getting mar-
ried. My kid sib Judi —
that’s Judi with an i,
topped with a smiley face
for a dot — inherited Mom
and Dad’s lack of appreci-
ation for my lifestyle.
“You’d better not show
up in some damned tuxe-
do,” my sister snapped.
“Why do you always have to make a statement?”
Well, duh! My gene-pool cohort was about to have her socially approved
gender-normative relationship regaled with a big family wedding, opulent gifts,
and a Hawaiian honeymoon. I couldn’t even get my sexual orientation acknowl-
edged, let alone celebrated. Wasn’t a statement in order?
Judi wouldn’t have any of it. “This is my wedding. If you can’t dress like a
girl, don’t come.”
I had half a mind to argue that girls can be firefighters, and come to her
wedding in bright yellow Kevlar. But no way she’d let her dykey gender-bender
big sister ruin her nuptials. And no way I’d let her keep my lesbian face out of
her wedding album. I wouldn’t miss my sister’s wedding no matter what. Even if
I had to go in total drag.
Which I did.
Luckily a flaming queen friend of mine had just the thing. He brought over a
flouncy, pink, voile-on-chiffon number with matching pink pumps — a leftover
from his early Diana Ross phase. I’d never learned to walk in heels. Under the
queen’s professional instruction, I minced across the room, concentrating to
keep my balance. One look at big beefy me teetering around in this get-up
would make my sister wish I had shown up in a tux.
I arrived early on Judi’s wedding day and wobbled down the hotel hallway to
join my family. Their suite door was propped open, hair spray fumes escaping in
gusts.
“Oh, Sal!” My mom hugged me. Not a word about my out-of-character
wardrobe choice. I guess I looked normal in her eyes, or else she was too dis-
traught to really see me. “Your sister needs help,” Mom nodded toward the
bathroom.
Dad paced and checked his watch. “She won’t let us near her.”
Judi flung open the door and stomped out in a cloud of big hair and yards of
white satin. The fitted bodice flopped forward from the waistline of her bridal
dress. “I can’t get this friggin’ zipper up!”
Mom turned toward me and rolled her eyes.
“I’ll do it.” I followed Judi into the bathroom, my silly shoes clicking on the
polished terra cotta.
My sister gathered up her skirts and flopped onto the toilet seat.
“Everything’s wrong!” Mascara tears streaked her carefully tanned cheeks. “My
dress is wrecked. I look hideous.”
True, but my god, what about me? In my over-the-top pink chiffon and tee-
tering high heels I looked like cotton candy on toe shoes.
“It’s OK.” I wrung out a washcloth and set to work. I daubed the mascara
drips from her dress, tidied her make-up and fixed the zipper. “See? All better.”
I helped her up for a look in the mirror, our faces close. “You’re beautiful.”
Our eyes met for minute — the two sisters. What difference did it make what
anyone was wearing?
“Come on girls.” Our dad tried to sound chipper, but Judi’s hissy fit had
done him in. “The limo’s waiting.”
I escorted my sister out of the bathroom. “Ta-dah!”
Judi, confident in her feminine perfection, hiked up her gown to show her
wedding garter. Dad snapped a picture of us standing there like that — me in
that comical dress with a big plastered-on smile, Judi trying to look like she
hadn’t been crying her eyes out.
I still have a copy of that photo, in case the original didn’t make it into her
wedding album.
Award-winning columnist Sally Sheklow enjoys her chosen family in Eugene.
6 SEPTEMBER 21, 2006
TO THE EDITOR
party, binding arbitration? That these com-
petitive salaries are routinely, regularly,
and collectively negotiated with your
employees? Am I to assume that issues
such as workload and assignments are
hashed out between management and labor
co-operatively and productively?
Unions are first and foremost the
worker’s voice in the workplace. Salaries
and health care benefits cannot make up for
that lost voice, no matter how competitive
or comprehensive they may be. Unions are
the worker’s tool for ensuring dignity,
respect and fairness. Without this tool, only
management determines what is fair, when
workers are treated with respect, and who
is allowed to retain their dignity. A work-
place without a union is a workplace where
the few make decisions for the many. A
workplace without a union is a workplace
where capriciousness, absolutism and
injustice rule the day.
It is typical of many lefty businesses
and organizations in Eugene to believe that
their workers don’t need a union, or that a
union would interfere with the good work
that they are trying to do. A union is simply
a way for management and workers to dis-
cuss, on an equal footing, issues that
impact the workplace. Any organization,
such as EW, that claims to be progressive,
green, feminist, liberal or radical should
have a union for its employees. Any work-
place that does not should abandon those
claims immediately.
David Cecil
Eugene
EDITOR’S NOTE: For the record, we never said EW
workers don’t need a union, only that we are not union-
ized. We are managed by committee, and all employees
are invited to participate in decision-making.
EUGENE’S SALON
I appreciated your coverage of the
Salon des Refuses ("Not Your Mayor's Art
Show") in the Eugene Celebration Program
(9/7). Writer Adrienne van der Valk did a
nice job of tying the history of the Eugene's
Salon to the 19th-century Paris original.
Also, it was great that the Weekly was able
to reproduce five of the outstanding works
hanging in the show in full color, although
I was disappointed not to see the names of
the paintings and the artists who painted
them.
The dramatic oil painting of the Iraqi
women brandishing guns titled "Should
We Be Silent?" is one of a series of 15
paintings of Iraqi women touched by the
current war by artist Marjorie Tracy. (Full
disclosure: Marjorie is my wife. We visited
Iraq together in 1988.) Could you also fill
your readers in on the names of the other
four paintings printed with the article, and
the names of their artists?
William Tracy
Eugene
EDITOR’S NOTE: Title cards with artist names were
not available when the photos were taken. The show
continues through Oct. 13 at 164 W. Broadway.
YES, IT IS TRILLIONS
A letter in EW Sept. 14 claims the
Bush regime's fiscal deficits are merely in
the billions, not the trillions. Unfortunately,
the true financial crimes are in the trillions.
Several trillion dollars has been added
to the federal debt over the past five years.
Even more astounding, an estimated $4
trillion is "unaccounted for" and has gone
missing, allegedly.
U.S. Secretary of War Donald
Rumsfeld held a press conference on Sept.
10, 2001 (the day before the "new Pearl
Harbor") to admit that the Pentagon could
not track $2.3 trillion. This information is
still on CBS's website, yet the media, the
Democratic Party and even the peace
movement do not call attention to this real-
ity. It is well documented that government
spinmeisters are fond of releasing damag-
ing news just before other events that dis-
tract from the airing of inconvenient
truths.
The day after this admission, the staff
of Resource Services Washington, an
Army accounting division, were reportedly
among the victims when Flight 77 flew
into the recently reconstructed and
strengthened sector of the Pentagon.
The only 2004 Presidential candidate
to discuss any of this was Dennis Kucinich,
who raised the issue of the missing trillions
in his campaign speeches.