Queen Me



I haven’t lived in England for years and years. And years. Basically a very long time. The kind of time you cough into your hand over, trying to hide the exact humungous number of years. Long enough ago that any reasonable person could be forgiven for calling me an American. But beware, should you say anything negative about the UK or Queen Elizabeth, my British roots will start showing and my British blood will start boiling. I’ll start flapping my British passport in the air, and put on my best True Brit voice. While I’m very much an American, I’m British by birth, born in 1953, in —as I’m fond of saying and saying—a scene right out of Call the Midwife. I’ve got a thing for the Queen from being born so close to her coronation day that my parents gave me Elizabeth for my middle name. Just a few days shy of being named Elizabeth Simone instead of the other way around. A few days days shy of being a Liz versus a Sim. Liz, Lizzie. I don’t mind the sound of that.

Growing up in Canada, the Queen's portrait was centered above the blackboard in my elementary school classrooms. I went to Princess Elizabeth Middle School in Niagara Falls, built in 1953 pre-Coronation day: it’s where I went through puberty, where I went to my first school dances. 
It was 1968, when we moved away, leaving Canada behind for the good ‘ol US of A. Thousands of young American men were coming to Canada and here we were going away. We left the Queen behind too, her royal portrait with its regal looking gown and crown replaced by the picture of LBJ, droopy jowls and all.
We didn’t just see him on our classroom walls, we saw him day after day on the Nightly Horror Show they called the news. I preferred the Queen.

••••••••••••••••••••••



Sharing this with Joy Weese Moll for British Isles Friday

Popular posts from this blog

Above Ground on the London Underground—Day 18: HELP! I’m nowhere near Abbey Road

Image
I’m taking a virtual walking tour ‘above ground’ on the London Underground. Using  my Tube guide and my fitbit® device, my goal is to walk at least 10,000 steps a day roughly following along the Underground route, reporting back here on Fridays with my findings. I'm back on track, following the Piccadilly Line. This is Day 18. Today I ’ m heading out from Boston Manor Station ,  that beautiful example of art deco architecture, taking an inbound stroll along the Piccadilly Line route.  Passing South Ealing my plan is to hit Gunnersby Park in Chiswick, where there’s a lake—do all British parks come with lakes? are there ladies of the lakes too?—a history museum, a ‘small mansion’ and several other ‘historically significant buildings’ including a folly or two.  Follies are those imaginative little structures that don’t do anything except add a magical touch of interest to a garden. From the French for stupidity, a folly suggests some real purpose, but lacks it comp
Continue Reading »

My Mother’s Voice

Image
Alzheimer’s being the conniving thieving bitch that  it is, my mother wasn’t herself in the final years of her life. The  woman I visited in the Alzheimer’s special care unit was a stranger wearing my mother’s skin but not much else, like the invasion of the body snatchers had taken place, month after month beneath the surface, until one day we looked and the woman we knew was gone, replaced by some alien being. An imposter. Intruder alert. Intruder alert. She died on Friday the 13th in 2012. My real mother —not the stranger in a wheel chair, head nodding on her shoulder—Enid Maude Good nee Hayden,  was British-born and had a lovely London lilt to her voice her whole life even though she left England in the mid-1950’s. I suppose at thirty, her vocal patterns were already frozen in place.  Sounding like a cross between Deborah Kerr and Judi Dench, there was something warm and welcoming, layered with a cool crispness, in her voice. She charmed everyone I ever knew when she called
Continue Reading »

#11 BEACH MUSIC: A time of tans, blonds and hot pants

Image
IT WAS A TIME OF TANS, BLONDS AND HOT PANTS, WHEN THE ENDLESS SUMMER WAS JUST A SHORT WALK DOWN A HOT SIDEWALK Beach Music, originally published in the Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, is really a tale of two cities: San Juan, Puerto Rico and Santa Monica, California. File it under On the Street Where I Live     Beach Music We came to California from Canada, with a detour to Puerto Rico that lasted one endless summer of a year. A year in which I turned 15, and my hair turned blond from living in the sun. “Psst,” the boys and men would call after me in the blue-cobbled streets of San Juan. “Psst! Hey, blondie. Psst! Hey, cutie pie.” I was devastated when my parents said we had to go, that it was time to leave the island so that my older brother, Russell, could get a first rate education. The plan was to drive cross country from Miami and settle in San Francisco so that my brother could finish high school before going on to UC Berkeley. B
Continue Reading »