The Queen
I was walking past the flat screen yesterday when breaking news came on that Queen Elizabeth II was no longer with us. We were prepared earlier in the morning when it was announced that her medical condition was being closely supervised.
She became Queen just about 10 months before I came on the scene. I have watched her all my life. I guess that made me a royal watcher.
Remember these opening lines from the Beatles tune?
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
But she doesn’t have a lot to say
She didn’t have a lot to say, but when she did speak, it was for a purpose. She didn’t do gaggles or off the cuff stuff with the media.
The featured photo is from her address to her subjects at the beginning of COVID-19.
When the tune came out, I was still in high school and starting to pay more attention to what was happening in the news.
We fought two world wars with the British and England is our closest ally so I paid attention as much as I could to the Queen and what she had to say. I had a ton of respect for her. Heck, she rode horses.
She will be missed on the world stage.
Ok. I said some couple of not so nice things about King Charles III last week when he was still prince. I will now cut him some slack since he is the king and wish him the best. One of the first things he can do is get his two sons and the rest of the family on the same page. Try being nice to the Duchess of Sussex. That is Meghan to you folks who need royal schooling.
I actually have been in the physical presence of King Charles when he was Prince Charles. Let me explain.
In 1986, when I was serving in the Governor Mark White administration, Texas was celebrating its sesquicentennial. That is our 150th birthday. It was announced that Prince Charles would come to the State Capitol to participate in the festivities. We were informed by security that he would walk through the Governor Office suites, and we were told to stand back and not approach him, and certainly not try to shake his hand.
He walked by and stood around for a few minutes and the thing that stayed with me is that I was taller than him. He didn’t look like the imposing figure you saw on TV or in the magazines.
I was listening to the new Prime Minister Liz Truss yesterday, and she ended her remarks with “God save the king.”
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In 1969, the Beatles released the “Abbey Road” album. On Side 2, after the “Golden Slumber,” “Carry that Weight,” and “The End” trilogy of sorts at the end, there is 14 seconds of silence then “Her Majesty” comes on and here are the lyrics:
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
But she doesn’t have a lot to say
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
But she changes from day to day
I wanna tell her that I love her a lot
But I gotta get a belly full of wine
Her Majesty is a pretty nice girl
Someday I’m gonna make her mine, oh yeah
Someday I’m gonna make her mine
When the album first came out, “Her Majesty” was not listed as a song on the cover of the album, the sleeve, or on the Side 2 label on the vinyl disc. It is all of 23 seconds. It got listed when CDs came out years later.
Sir Paul McCartney did perform “Her Majesty” in front of the Queen at one of her Golden Jubilee events in 2002.
That is all I have today. Have a safe weekend.