November 21, 2024
Union Jack at half staff

Union Jack at half staff.

This is one of those things I wondered if I would ever see, really. Her Royal Majesty has at long last left us. She was here for ninety-six years and the sovereign for seventy years and I heard yesterday that more than 80% of British folks have never known another. She saw fourteen US presidents—and met all of them save for LBJ, for some reason.

In the early-middle 1960s, she used to look like my mother’s sister, my Aunt Mary. So I’ve always liked her and enjoyed her wry sense of humor. She had a tremendous sense of Self, I thought. She wouldn’t do a lot of things, because she was Her Majesty. She had, for instance, her own Facebook page, but one could not “Poke” her majesty, when that was a feature. But she didn’t mind appearing (with her Corgis) in a James Bond movie and a Paddington Bear commercial. She always had that twinkle in her eye. In all of her time on the throne I only knew her to put a foot wrong a single time, during the aftermath of Diana’s death. And she quickly recovered from that.

I’m glad to have been here and shared some of the same space at the same time. I hope for the best for Charles, now.

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