(Union Jack’s Public House, Ballston Neighborhood, Arlington, VA. Photo Union Jack’s.)
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge left Buckingham Palace by helicopter to commence their married life. At least that is what the Beeb said this morning. I breathed a sigh of relief that I am now able to let the tangled affairs of the Royals slide back into my brain attic where they can remain, un-contemplated, until the next scandal or moment of monarchial singularity.
I have to say that it was a wonderful encounter with the Windsors, though. Or the Battenberg-Windsors, which is the surname that the father of the groom and his ex-wife entered in the marriage register long ago. The new Royal couple got three new titles for the occasion as best I can tell.
I would style myself as the “Duke of Socotra” if I could, and it occurs to me that I might, like the Dauphin in Huckleberry Finn.
Charles has become the longest-serving Royal in the on-deck circle in history, and I saw Ms Parker-Bowels giving him the business, or appearing to, in the high-sided limousine as they arrived at the Abbey.
The Queen, bless her, was dressed in a conservative frock the color of the bottom of a lemon merengue pie.
I have no idea why we Americans are so enamored of the marriages of the Royal. It is sort of a chick thing, I think, or at least that was the impression I got when I walked into the bar at Union Jack’s just after 0530 yesterday morning and saw all the hats and tiaras worn without a great deal of irony.
But I am getting ahead of myself as usual. Despite my personal relationship to the father of the groom, more of that anon, I probably would have slept in on Friday morning if Mary-Margaret had not won tickets to attend a promotional event at the local British-themed pub Union Jacks. We had attended the National’s game downtown the night before, and the late return from a surprising victory over the Mets made sleep short.
It was sort of neat that the marriage was not an uneasy compromise between the East and West Coasts of the United States like the Superbowl or the NCAA Men’s Final basketball game. For this moment, at least, London was once more the center of a world on which the sun never sets.
There is a day coming when the past-tense will apply to Washington and New York as well, but not just yet.
Anyway, in London the ceremony was scheduled to start precisely at 11:00, and walking the cat backward, Mary-Margaret decreed that we should meet in lobby of Big Pink at 0520 to proceed to the event and be in our places in time for the ceremony.
She had four tickets, and I was the lucky “B”-list attendee. Mary-Margaret’s consort was off looking at the second-to-last Shuttle launch down on Florida’s Space Coast, the penultimate event in America’s going-out-of-the-spaceship business, and I was the lucky beneficiary.
They say the Shuttle is the most complex moving thing the human race has designed, except for marriage, and as it turns out, the launch was postponed even though everyone had shown up on time. I was the lucky beneficiary of the fourth ticket, along with Marty-1 and Death Junior.
It was still dark as I donned white duck trousers, white buck shoes and a sedate clip-on bow tie with a boldy-striped Brooks Brothers shirt covered by a sedate blue blazer. I wanted to show respect, rather than shrugging on my jeans and a t-shirt.
Memories of another Royal wedding flooded back as we met in the lobby. Marty-1 was wearing a full-on hat, a wildly improbable inverted mushroom of hot pink floral color. Mary-Margret was stylish in a dark tailored silk pant-suit. Death Junior, as you know, has moved out of the building, but secured parking at her employer’s Ballston location and was walking from the funeral home.
I decided to drive myself over and park at the office. I was going to wind up there anyway, and Union Jack’s is just a couple long blocks away. It was a pity Willow was not the destination. I know owner Tracy O’Grady could have done it up right, but as a good Irishwoman, I suspected she was ignoring the whole enterprise.
Most of Ballston was just coming alive. I had to use the card access to open the big segmented steel door to the garage, and popped up through the Westin Hotel exit. Crossing Wilson Boulevard I saw that a satellite truck was parked in front of the bar, the control room illuminated. I stocked up on cash from the e-Trade bank in the lobby, and walked past a Union Jack employee clad in a red jacket and busby, like a rental version of the guards at Buckingham Palace.
We could have come earlier. Apparently the doors had opened at 0500, and you could tell the available staff was a little shell shocked, since last call had only happened a few hours earlier. Every table was taken, mostly filled with women, and most of them in hats.
A perky young woman near the door indicated that non-radio attendees were sequestered in the front parlor, with special seating and a vast buffet offering a Big English Breakfast with beans, bangers and squeek. Not to mention Pimm’s Cup, a real BBC correspondent, 25 big-screen TVs and Mix 107.3’s Jack Diamond in the Morning, live and broadcasting in person.
It was good that Death Junior had been in position at the bar. She glowered at a couple women in spring dresses and elaborate millinery, holding them away from a couple seats in front of the beer taps at the back bar.
(Kate Middleton and some guy stand at the altar at Westminster Abbey. Photo Socotra.)
Notables were arriving by long black cars at the Abbey as I contemplated whether to have coffee and wake up, or just surrender to alcohol and the moment. As I watched the magnificent uniforms, and the astonishing headgear, I was drawn back to the summer of my own marriage, and the costume-dress of my own uniform and that marvelous dress of white.
That was the connection I have with the Prince of Wales. He proposed in February of 1981, and the world began to buzz with the anticipation of the Wedding of the Century. I proposed the week I got out of Korea, 36 months out of America, and finally ready to make a commitment.
Charles and I shared that sentiment. He and Diana were wed a few weeks after I was, and I am
The bride I could see over the beer taps looked magnificent, and everyone commented on how lovely Kate looked in her dress. Tim the bartender helped my decision. “This is a bar, not a coffee house. We have one machine that doesn’t do much more than your Mr. Coffee at home. Sorry.” He shrugged and smiled.
“Make it a Bloody Mary, then,” I said. I looked up at the spectacle on the screens all around, a hall of elaborate electronic mirrors and soaring gothic arches.
Mardy-1 opted for a mimosa. Death Junior tossed her newly-blonde locks and stayed sober. She got up to make a run at the buffet. “If my phone rings, it means someone died. I have the duty today.”
Mary-Margaret leaned over: “There are supposed to be two billion people watching the ceremony!”
“Two billion,” I said. “That is a hell of a number.” I had another couple drinks as we watched the priest and the ring and the singing and all the hats, both there and at Union Jacks. Then, when The Duke and the new Duchess emerged from the Abbey, I slipped a couple twenties to Tim, and walked down to the office to start the day.
The Royals would be off on Honeymoon, leaving the palace by helicopter, and I had to get ready to go to Detroit.
(Party at the remote viewing of the Royal Wedding. L-R: Socotra, DJ, MM and M-1. )
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicocotra.com