The Queen!

It has to be scary when a gay man begins a blog posting with the title The Queen! You expect the story to be about a seven-foot tall black man with a blond wig and a tight little dress, but alas, that is another (and yet very true) story. But that rather fun tidbit happened years before the story I am about to relate to you.

This queen is not a male (as far as I know) and is not gay...well... as far as I know. She is just a fair young maiden with the annoying habit-from-the-North of saying "Eh?" She of tall stature and blond hair, from the land of black bears, bison and caribou.

Of course you have guessed by now that I am writing about the daughter of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, her royal majesty Paulina Gretzky. No? You didn't make that leap? Let me explain things in more detail.

The city of Norfolk, Virginia has hosted a special event since the early 1950s titled The Azalea Festival. It is a big hoop-de-doo involving military ambassadors from all of the NATO member countries, which includes a fantastic Tattoo presentation, a Parade of Nations and of course, pretty girls from all the countries. Each year one of those pretty girls is named The Azalea Queen, and all the runners-up are delegated to be her court. Not that there is any process of voting. That would be too trendy-petty-biased-DANGEROUS for the delicate balances within the NATO alliance. Naw, they just rotate the honor so that each country gets to have a queen every 20 years. Except for the United States. We get to have a queen more often. We host the festival. So there.

The queen and her court are usually selected from the gene pool of major players in a country's history. Usually the young ladies have a military father or actual ties to the royal family of whatever country she represents. When it came time for Canada to produce an Azalea Queen, that country had really very little of either to choose from, so they picked a daughter from the GREATEST OF ALL CANADIAN HEROES: WAYNE GRETZKY. And thus in 2006, Paulina Gretzky was named the Azalea Queen.

This story is not really about her.

Early one morning in late April, as is the time for the Azalea Festival to begin, I took a stroll through the lobby of the Marriott, which happened to be the host hotel for the NATO delegates and of course the queen and her court. The young Marriott employees, each one more delicate and sweet than the international beauties before them, were in a total frenzy of excitement.

I approached and asked why they were so nervous and giggly...

To which one of the girls burst forth in both pride and joy, "I just checked in The Queen of Canada! (gasp) And she touched me! (gasp)"

?

And to my own credit, I smiled and told her how amazing that must feel. I honestly hope she is able to carry that memory for quite awhile before the truth makes its way into her life. I hope she can remain innocent for many years to come. And whoever explains to her that Paulina may be the daughter of a famous man, but certainly not the monarch of Canada, well I hope he or she does it nicely. A little quote from "Tea and Sympathy" comes to mind: "Years from now, when you speak of this, be kind...be kind".

As a sidenote, which has no humor at all and certainly shouldn't be added as the finale of a humorous story, within a few weeks or possibly months, Queen Noor checked into the Marriott without any fanfare at all. I thought that was a little sad and if I had ever been tempted to go down and tell the girls how wrong-they-were, it would have been then.

But we will save the world another day, right?