ON HER MAJESTY’S BIRTHDAY
(…it’s nice to see a contemporary who, much like a great wine…has aged so well)

It’s Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday, and, Francophile though I may be, it’s nice to see a contemporary who, much like a great wine…has aged so well (sorry about that analogy, Ma’rm, just chalk it up to those French roots of mine). Even so, it is appropriate because great wines rarely end up as …vin aigre…so our British cousins have been most fortunate about that, because, from that way-back day as a slip of a girl standing on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, shyly smiling and waving to her cheering subjects as the new Queen of England, she has always shown herself, despite many vicissitudes in her life, to be a class act, who has now matured into a much admired and benign matriarchal figure. Very few monarchs have been able to do that, and I like to think we both might still be around to celebrate her 100^th one.

This day, of course, is her actual birthday, and for those who are of the astrological persuasion, none of this should be surprising, since that makes her a Ram (Aries), and Rams are definitely of the class act genre. But we’ll all just have to wait to see it perfectly displayed at the official celebrations for it in June, when she will preside over that grand ceremonial for the occasion at…The Trooping of the Colors.

Now, I have a confession to make here, and I hope the Queen will forgive me for it, which is: the occasion of the Queen’s birthday always reminds me of a petite auburn-haired beauty, dressed in a stunning deep royal blue velvet gown, who I only got to briefly meet once… her younger sister Princess Margaret…and for whom I immediately developed a very intense crush. Well, of course, there was never an actual personal encounter with her, but that crush almost got me arrested.

At the time, I was a desert rat on a brief leave in London from my assignment in Saudi Arabia. After other “diversions” while there, including Foley’s bookstore, the Imperial War Museum, etc., on my next to last day I then decided to take in Madame Toussaud’s Wax Museum. Its lifelike displays of famous (and infamous) people were interesting enough, but, the one thing that really caught my attention that day there was a life-size figure standing in spot-lighted solitary display in the center of the main hall.

If you’ve guessed it…you’re right…it was Princess Margaret herself! Captivated by that image of her, I slowly circled and circled round and round that amazingly lifelike figure… all the while my towering form whispering sweet admiring nothings into her ear. I continued like that for some twenty minutes, at which point the museum’s guards, fearing I was some sort of desert sun-fried nut case, decided it was time to politely, but firmly, escort me off the premises, where an equally firm and polite London Bobby took over.

After five minutes of questioning me, however, he was inclined to write me off as just another daft, but harmless, Yank, gaga about anything royal, until…I earnestly asked him if he knew her phone number…because all I really wanted was to call such a gorgeous girl to ask her for a dinner date before I had to head back to another long stint in the middle of that desert kingdom.

For a moment he just stared hard at me and I was beginning to wonder if I had made some kind of – lese majeste – faux pas which would send me to the Tower. Fortunately, he was an understanding sort, so he just shook his head, smiled, and said…sorry lad…but you’ll have to find another beauty for that sort of thing…and with an avuncular pat on my shoulder… sent me off away from there.

It was six months before I found myself back in London again, and for all that time the image of that ravishing figure at Madame Toussaud’s never left my mind. So it was one of the first places I went to after my arrival, determined to get just one more glimpse of her.

Alas, she was no longer there. She had been replaced by an image of…Marylyn Monroe! The dogs! I was crushed… and I’ve never been back to that museum since.

C’est la vie!

CENTURION