(Villa of Mon Repose Palace, Corfu, Greece. Photo Wikipedia.)
The Duke of Edinburough and I don’t have a great deal in common. He is tall guy, for a Greek, and looks more Scandinavian, though some might say German, if that didn’t have so much negative baggage over the ninety years the Prince Consort has been on the planet.
Didn’t seem fair- I mean, come on, the guy turned ninety today and had war service in two theaters. So what if he wondered if British students who studied in China might come back “with slitty eyes?”
Some Republican was beating the crap out of him this morning on the BBC for that. I wish Raven could say something stupid, and he is maybe will make 89 this year, so Philip is way ahead. From what I could gather, being a ‘Republican’ (in Brit terms) refers to those who favor the abolition of the Monarchy through either peaceful or more pro-active means.
The things I do share with the Prince Consort include an inappropriate attitude and a birthday, precisely 30 years apart. He is ninety, and I am sixty, both divisible by 3, 5 and 10.
Coincidence? I think not.
Philip was born at the Villa Mon Repos palace on the island of Corfu, and baptized at St George’s Church at the Palaio Frourio (Old Fortress) in Haddokkos a few days after his birth. I am not sure I ever was- there is no paperwork to support it, and neither Raven nor Big Mama could testify with any reliability anymore.
Actually, there are other things I share with the Prince Consort. We both served in the Navies of our nations, and both renounced our original names to take up others. And like Philip, I have “no Greek blood and do not speak Greek”.
To confirm all of this, I dug out the long-form birth certificate this morning to ensure I was actually a US citizen. I intended to start celebrating at midnight, but was long asleep as the suffocating humidity and heat dissipated in the violence of the clouds. I got a modest dip in the pool after getting back from a minor but gratifying event with my Flight Surgeon, Co-Conspirator, and Old Jim at Willow.
There was some controversy with the Polish Lifeguard- he was of the opinion that he had heard thunder and was within his right to close the pool.
I contended that I had heard nothing and was entitled to whatever minutes remained before nine, or the outbreak of an unambiguous peal of noise from the dense clouds that were enveloping Big Pink.
In the end I got five minutes in the cool water, and then the heaven gave us an entirely biguous horizontal bolt of orange lightning with an accompanying roar, and I quit the water and the pool deck.
I went down fairly early last night, so I missed midnight, when the great chasm was crossed. I thought I had been born at Detroit General in the morning. Don’t know why I thought that, but it was a convenient imaginared fact.
(Mt. Carmel Mercy Hospital, 901 Outer Drive, Detroit, MI, circa 1951. Photo MCMH.)
Looking at the photstat of the original long-form birth certificate, I discovered that I was indeed a U.S. Citizen, but not born in the morning, but rather at 6:19 PM, so I am not sixty yet.
Raven had delivered the woman who was not a Mama, either large or small (yet) to the tender mercies of the ER of Mount Carmel Mercy Hospital on Outer Drive, the closest place to the house at 14897 Sussex.
Google Maps tells me it is six minutes to the hospital, via the black 1948 Ford sedan that I still remember, and what’s more, the house is actually still there. Or was. The place next door on the street view is vacant and partially gutted. The place my parents brought me home to is a tidy brick place that still has windows, though it is tagged with red spray paint on the living room glass that says:
“Fen
SLOB
Killa.”
I have no idea what that phrase means, sixty years after I first saw the place, and Detroit being what it is these days, it may be gone or transformed to ruins or ashes in the months since the street image was acquired by the Google car camera.
Raven was of the impression that these events could take several hours, and men of that era were not expected to look interested or concerned at the agony of birth. He went down to the cafeteria to get a slice of apple pie with a slice of American cheese on top and a cup of java, and was astonished when a Carmelite Nun bustled into the cafeteria to fetch him to see his first born son.
I don’t recall any of that, naturally. The first real memory I retain is of the house on Kentucky Street and eating dirt with an associate in the back yard.
Memory is a funny thing. You could ask Philip, but he would probably say something incorrect, and I can’t remember what the question was.
Copyright 2011 Vic Socotra
www.vicocotra.com