Please tell me this is a joke

An actual letter to the editor from The Facts in Brazoria County, where a very dear woman, Mary Ruth Rhodenbaugh, is running for the office of county commissioner:

A MAN IS NEEDED TO REPRESENT PRECINCT 4

A man is the only one who should be elected for the County Commissioner of Precinct 4 — or any other precinct in Brazoria County.

It certainly would be an “interruption” for a woman commissioner to come on board. My husband, Donald Anderson, was the safety man for Precinct 4 when he passed away Aug. 15, 1997. And if he were still living, and a woman commissioner would come to Precinct 4, he would be the first one to leave. And if I were still working there, I would be the second one to leave. This is no place for a woman commissioner, period.

The two girls who work at Precinct 4 are doing a great job. The 47 men have a safety meeting once a week, a morning meeting before they start their schedule of working on roads, mowing ditches, taking care of their equipment and working in the shop.

Mary Ruth seems to have done such a great job on all of the jobs that she has listed, that she should stick to one of those listed, letting a man take care of Precinct 4.

Winnie Anderson, West Columbia

Listen, you old hag. I was just trying to wax poetic about how impressed I was with my latest visit to my hometown, and you have to spoil it with this 1840s garbage?

So, Winnie, darling, I know that you're just a girl and probably don't have no need of no schoolin', but let me explain something about a county commissioner job. First of all, the commissioners do not actually go out there and pave the roads and dig the ditches themselves. That's what the crews are for. Even if they did, the woman in question, who has led the building of dozens of houses for Habitat for Humanity, would be a lot better suited to do it than some of the county commissioners of years past, some of whom have been so old that they've had a stroke while in office.

If your husband was so backward-thinking that he would have quit his job rather than work for one of them wimmin folk, then let me say that Aug. 15, 1997 definitely is not going to go down in my calendar as one of the saddest days on record.