Time Passes and Changes

Today, for the third month in a row, we were wait-listed for the ferry of our choice. It is a very discouraging moment when you find that you are the very first of 30+ cars filled with people not to get to drive on to the ferry, and then you get to watch it steam away without you, filled with some 250 other cars filled with people. Sittin’ on the dock of the bay, indeed.

But we put in our waiting time like grownups: Ed read and slept, I knit on a pair of purple socks and walked around to see the wonders of the ferry parking lot. Two plus hours later, on the next ferry, I continued my walking and came upon a sight of interest. This particular ferry, named The Queen of Surrey, was recently retrofitted or generally dusted and cleaned in some elaborate way by the B.C. Ferry Corporation. In the process, some things changed. The children’s area, which used to feature some playground-style plastic objects, now has a big wall TV that, at least today, was showing a cartoon with orange flowers. Coffee bars have appeared where there were before no coffee bars. And the Queen of Canada, Her Majesty Elizabeth Two has aged 30 years, at least. We have a new Queen Two picture on the ferry. A very different picture from the previous one.

I remember the old picture largely because Queen Two in that picture was so much younger than I know she actually is. She looked middle-aged and attractive, albeit still stodgy. I remember her when we were both children during WW II (Elizabeth and Margaret, the brave little princesses!) , so I know for a fact that she is closer to my age than she is to being middle-aged. I just took it as one of the perks of queendom that you get to look forever young, or at least sort of. So, I was surprised to see that with the Surrey’s cleanup, Queen Two was now looking her age. Stern, of course; no merry twinkle in this Elizabeth’s eye. World-worn, I’d say, though maybe only family-worn.

She was, however, regally dressed. A crown of course, and a necklace of many serious jewels: diamonds, I’d think from the lack of color and size; the Order of Canada prominently placed on the shoulder of a dress of lace with three-quarter length sleeves, slightly flared, and the edges of the sleeves themselves jeweled. She is wearing what appear to be 12-button white (kid?) gloves. Tres elegant! And then, and then, I saw…a fashion statement? The queen was wearing on her left wrist, over her 12-button white (kid?) gloves what appeared to be a watch with a platinum band.

It’s been a long time since I wore a pair of 12-button gloves; say 54 years. But I’m pretty sure that we were taught never to wear a watch on the outside of a long glove. Not ever, not even if you really needed to know the time. And why would Queen Two need to know the time? She has people who tell her the time. She was having her royal photo taken; that’s what time it was. So have standards changed? Have I lost track of what the standards really were? I think not.

I took myself, of course, immediately to the internet to determine glove etiquette. The Gaspar Glove Company enunciates the standards:

• Don’t eat, drink or smoke with gloves on.
• Don’t play cards with gloves on
• Don’t apply makeup with gloves on.
• Don’t wear jewelry over gloves, with the exception of bracelets.
• Don’t make a habit of carrying your gloves—they should be considered an integral part of your costume.
• Don’t wear short gloves to a very gala ball, court presentation or “White Tie” affair at the White House or in honor of a celebrity.

Rule number 4 is the relevant one here and surely a watch isn’t a bracelet, even if the watch has a very platinum watchband.

Well, what have we come to? One woman almost nominated to become President of the United States, and another woman who heads the British Monarchy wearing a watch over her 12-button gloves. Traditions being shattered everywhere I look.

The Queens, the War Dead, the Summer

Today is Victoria Day here in rainy British Columbia. For many years, I thought Victoria Day was the day that the folks hereabouts celebrated the capital of the province, Victoria—over there on Vancouver Island--and, symbolically, the province itself. But not so: B.C. day is some other time, and today is the birthday celebration of Canada’s first monarch, Queen Victoria, born on May 24, 1819. So we’re just a decade away from her 200th birthday which, given that this is one of only two days that Canadians may legally set off fireworks, should be very bright and colorful and all that, unless it rains, of course.

You don’t hear much about Queen Victoria from the Canadians who are celebrating her birthday today by not going to school or work. (In Quebec, you don’t hear about Victoria Day at all as they understandably choose not to celebrate British Monarchs in French Canada.) As I have previously mentioned, nor do you hear all that much about Queen Elizabeth, despite the fact that she is running a very strong race, likely to beat out Vicky as the longest running monarch in the Commonwealth, the U.K., and Canada. Elizabeth is also being honored on Victoria Day, but it’s hard to see exactly how: I mean if it were about both of them, wouldn’t they call it Queens’ Day? But then, it’s not really about either of them, it is just named Victoria Day. Holidays are like that, I suppose. At one point, a lot of people think something is really a big deal and ought to have a holiday of its own in order to mark the level of importance. But time passes, and the big dealness dwindles and we are now at another point where it’s just a day you don’t have to go to work or school.

In the U.S., Columbus was once a big deal; now he’s just a holiday that some states sponsor and some don’t, largely a function of whether the state had, at the one time, enough of an Italian population to demand holiday status for him. When I was a small child, Decoration Day was still barely enough of a day that I knew you went to the cemetery and tidied up the graves; only later did I discover that the big deal part was the Civil War and the honoring of those dead (the U.S. South, like the Quebecois, weren't so much into honoring the other side, of course); and later yet, it became Memorial Day, a day for honoring all the war dead on our side or, in the case of the Civil War, on both sides. It then became that memorable Monday when you didn’t have to go to school or work and you could listen to the Indianapolis 500 on the radio, which I also used to do as a child. Well, somebody in my house listened to it, because I can remember the endless sound of motors whizzing around a track somewhere filling our very small house. What a remarkable thought: listening to a car race, but then how much different from listening to a horse race or a baseball game, I suppose: a visual experience transformed into an auditory experience. But now we have TV so you can, I suppose, watch those little cars whizzing around the track as well as listen to them. From the war dead to a car race; from the Queens to fireworks.

Maybe they could name those little racecars after the Queens or, better yet, after the war dead, all of them. That might dampen the celebratory nature of the day, I guess. And it would make for way too many racecars, I fear. Better yet, forget the war dead—as we already have for the most part--and just rename it Almost Summer Day, a name whose meaning everybody is likely to remember for a long, long time. It’s coming up, Almost Summer Day: be ready.