Elizabeth Regina

I have a fondness for this stranger.  She looks uncannily like my long deceased grandmother and shares the name of my sister.  Besides, she's sat on the throne of Great Britain and ruled over it and its Commonwealth territories for 60 years.  The only other monarch to have served as long is Queen Victoria and Elizabeth, no doubt, will best her record in about 4 years.

I, a fairly unemotional man, was brought to tears when she ordered her palace guards to play the U.S. national anthem after the September 11, 2001 attacks.   A more gracious person at the figurative head of our staunchest ally could not be found.

Tomorrow marks the official celebration of her Diamond Jubilee or her 60th year since that fateful day in 1952 when her dad, King George, known to most Americans through the movie "The King's Speech," died.  She returned from a foreign trip, a very young and impressionable lady, and immediately took hold of the reins of monarchy.  In deference to her father and the mourning period following his death, she was not officially crowned until a year later in June.  Nevertheless, Elizabeth quickly grasped the workings of Buckingham and Balmoral and the government at Whitehall and has never slipped.

To be sure, she has had some bumps in an otherwise illustrious road of life.  She was both at her finest and at her worst when her daughter-in-law, the former Princess of Wales, was killed in a car wreck in a tunnel in Paris.   She, obeying the rules and laws which she believed bound her to certain conduct, failed to show what most considered proper deference to "Lady Di."  Passions have ebbed and so has the memory of Diana and Elizabeth charges on.

Some joke that they hope she lives forever or for at least a day longer than her son the Prince of Wales.  Charles' son William and his new bride, the Duchess of Cambridge, may be more stable successors they say.

Gracious, wise, witty and loving.  A woman who, at a young age, was asked to do so much and responded magnificently.  To those of you who hold a glass on this rainy Friday night, raise it high in a toast to Elizabeth Regina.  "The Queen!"