I can't help it. This bit of news brought me straight back to 1962, Brussels, Belgium and my total crush on that older lady killer Prince Charles. He was like fourteen. I was twelve.
While my mother was a beautiful Southern belle married to a successful business man, and we were living quite the international life in Brussels, his mother was the queen of England.
We were not destined to meet.
But ever since then, I have filtered my opinion about Liz and indeed Phil, through my loyalty to Charles and the raw deal he has gotten in this life. It's one thing to be the fall guy, the token dweeb, the token unfeeling social retard, in private. It is quite another to be considered all this by the entire world.
I've always felt Liz should have stepped down a long time ago to give her son something meaningful to do. Something that might have made, well...a king out of him.
But she has clung to the mantle of her royal job like she didn't have any hobbies to fall back on. She has clung to her job like she didn't have that husband to go home to. Like there weren't any dogs, grandchildren and houses aplenty to occupy her time in the golden years of her life.
Charles will forever be the man who coulda been a contender, but we will never know. Not really. He's already been branded.
Aah well. Today is Liz and Phil's 60th wedding anniversary. That's a lot of years of togetherness.
In spite of myself I feel a trifle misty eyed.
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