Farewell to a lady

Former Texas governor Ann Richards has died. She was 73.

I was so honored to have met Governor Richards once. She was brash and brassy, loud and incredibly smart. Scary smart. I often said that if she had chosen to run for president, I would have left my job and worked for her for free for as long as it took to put her in the White House.

We may not see her like again for some time, but she certainly tried to make sure we would. She encouraged young women not to settle, ever, for anything less than the best they could do.

Richards often told young girls not to try her path diverting from obedient know-no-alternative housewifery to a late discovery of personal potential.

"The only standard that truly matters is the one you set for yourself," she said at Girls State in 1993. "And you cannot count on Prince Charming to make you feel better about yourself and take care of you, like some funhouse mirror that reflects you at twice your real size.

"Because Prince Charming may be driving a Honda and telling you that you have no equal . . . but that won't do you much good when you've got kids and a mortgage . . . and he has a beer gut and a wandering eye."

On embarking on her 12-year stint as a statewide official, Richards said: "Naturally, I want it to be easier for women to get involved in politics. I want them to think of politics and public service as a good place for them, as something honorable and something worthwhile for them to pursue. And the way they are going to do that is to say, 'If she can do it, I can do it.' "

The world has lost a true lady in every sense of the word. I hope there are Harleys in heaven.

Comments:

<< Back to Must See HTTP://