When I was growing up, there was a prevailing attitude that America was the greatest country in the world, Texas was the greatest state in the Union, and Tyler was the best place in Texas to live. And, if you lived on the south side of the train tracks, so much the better. Of course, I’m from Tyler, and yes, there were literal train tracks.
So, I was thrilled when I saw an item on Facebook this week saying that none other than the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are planning to buy a vacation home near Tyler. Goodness, there won’t be any living with the locals now! Since the idea is to live modestly (whatever that means when you’re the future King of England), my thoughts started soaring on flights of fantasy.
Imagine Kate buying groceries at Brookshire’s to take home to William and George and Charlotte. And what a nice change, too, because I’ll just bet they will know (without being told) that the name of the store is accented on the first syllable…not the second. As we’re all just folks, we can be on a first name basis, but considering their position, we might confer on them Old South titles and refer to them as Miss Catherine and Mr. William. That has a nice ring to it.
And they should be pleased to find that somebody doesn’t have to die to have a coronation in Tyler. At the Texas Rose Festival, a new queen is crowned every October in a ceremony that is part Idlewild debut and part Mardi Gras. (There’s a kind of gay sensibility to the whole thing…crowns, scepters, rhinestone and seed pearl embroidery on the gowns, yards and yards of train…really, I don’t know how that ever happened. And it is fabulous. Seriously.)
So I went googling to find another article with more detailed information about exactly where the Buckingham-Texas house would be. Care to guess what I found? Nothing. Just me getting pegged as another sucker taken in by a fantasy news site.
Maybe I’ll get in on this thing. Perhaps post a story on Hillary Clinton’s official campaign song, “Stuck in the Middle with You”…so appropriate with its “clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right” lyric. And, maybe Donald Trump using “I Don’t Like to Show Off”…the new song from Bob, the Drag Queen. (If you’re not up to date on this season’s RuPaul, I’ll just leave it there.) I would have said Trump using “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” as his song, but he actually used that on the campaign trail—which proves how hard it is to make this stuff up.
So, with my new discernment, I’m not going to get punked (honestly, I’ve never used that word before and never thought I’d have occasion to do so) the next time I get on Facebook. But in the meantime, I need to call that unidentified man from the IRS with the deep, scary voice who left a message saying he is going to file a lawsuit against me if I don’t call him with my credit card number.
