britannia waives the rule

Late last Spring, my blogger chum, Gary Denness, told me he was going to conduct an experiment. He was going to mail a post card to me in Mexico and another to Michigan (if I remember correctly), and we would discover which mail service was superior.

Let me confess a rather embarrassing fact. I had completely forgotten about this Aesopean reenactment of the hare and the tortoise until this afternoon. I stopped at the post office to pick up mail, something I had not done for six weeks.

Because it had been such a long time since I retrieved my mail, I thought I would have enough mail to entertain me this afternoon. But I needed to find other post-noon dispersion.

There were only three pieces of mail. My July 2020 Oregon State Bar Bulletin. (I have yet to read the previous four editions.) My May/June Impremis from Hillsdale College featuring an adapted lecture by Heather MacDonald: "Four Months of Unprecedented Government Malfeasance" (and it is not necessarily about who you think.)

But, it was the third piece of mail that first caught my eye. An envelope bearing the postal visage of the Hanoverian Queen -- with no return address. I thought it might be from an ex-girlfriend.

I was wrong. It was from a current friend. The envelope contained the post card that Gary had promised me.

Here is where the tricky part arises. Even though my post office clearly stamps when a piece of mail is received (or, at least, the day it is stamped, which could be two entirely different things: 22 August), in this case, the British postal service provided me with a blurred mailing post mark. I suppose it was some sort of quantum comment on how the British postal service is faster than the speed -- of something or other.

Gary tells me he mailed the post card in mid-May. The fact that the card was in an envelope is a bit of a cheat. I long ago learned that post cards on their own seem to settle into the bottom of mail bags until some enterprising employee dons a miner's lamp and sallies forth into the deep strata of the past. Many a soul is memorialized in post card cave-ins. 

I once mailed a post card to my parents in The States when I took up a posting in Greece. The card was not delivered until I had taken up another posting just outside of Oxford -- over a year later. Whoever said "news travels fast" was not familiar with the vagaries of post cards.

Gary's new post card now sits beside another I received from him years ago. I think I won some sort of contest on his blog. It is of The Queen -- looking very hip in her regal gear and wearing cool sun glasses.

For some reason, the stamp on today's envelope and the photograph of the queen as a denizen of Studio 54 reminded me of an episode of the third season of "The Crown." The Queen has just returned from a visit to one of Wales's most memorable tragedies at Aberfan. Prime Minister Wilson is commending her for her "prompt response."

The Queen: "They didn't get one. They deserved a display of compassion,
of empathy from their Queen. And they got nothing. I dabbed a bone-dry eye,
and by some miracle, no one noticed."

In an attempt to turn an embarrassing response, Wilson replies: "In a way,
your absence of emotion is a blessing. No one needs hysteria from a head of state."

A very British response.

Similar to one of my favorite lines from The Iron Lady. When her doctor asks her how she has been feeling, an aging Margaret Thatcher responds with what has to be one of cinema's most-telling moments:

People don’t "think" any more. They "feel".

"How are you feeling?" "Oh I don’t feel comfortable with that" "Oh, I’m so sorry but we, the group were feeling..."

D’you know, one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than thoughts and ideas.

Now thoughts and ideas. That interests me.

As you may imagine, I am not really writing about either Queen Elizabeth or Margaret Thatcher. Gary's post card made me think about my mother. Especially, its "Keep calm and carry on" message. It perfectly embodies my mother's nature.

Like Margaret Thatcher, whom she adores, my mother is a person who cares about thoughts and ideas. She is extremely distrustful of emotion -- especially, hysteria. To her, they are tools of manipulation.

An anecdote will illustrate. When I was in grade school, the kitchen stove plug caught on fire and started a blaze while my mother was cooking breakfast. She walked into the bedroom where was father was still abed and calmly said: "Bob, the house is on fire" -- in a barely modulated voice. He did not stir. She repeated: "Bob, the house is on fire" -- with an emphasis on "Bob." He then jumped out of bed blustering on his way to perform his spousal duties. Unlike my mother, my father had a tool kit of well-honed and oft-used emotions.

In the 72 years I have known her, I cannot recall ever seeing my mother cry. I suspect she considers such displays to be unseemly. Or, like The Queen, her eyes are simply bone-dry by nature.

I have inherited a bit of that myself, though I have also inherited my father's  moments of losing control. I want to talk about that in relation to a few of my possessions I discovered at my mother's house last month. Particularly, the fact that I do not feel music; to me, music is "thoughts and ideas."

But that will wait for a few days.

I need to catch you up on what is happening in the flood recovery here -- and somewhere I may even slip in a reference of my love affair with the Mexican postal system. But, I guess, I just did.

"Keep calm and carry on."