While cleaning out my parents' house 20 years ago, I came across this card -- a keepsake from Queen Elizabeth's coronation year of 1952. Mother was an Anglophile and one of the royalist Americans. The British monarchy was defined for her by its steely performance of patriotic perseverance during World War II. Elizabeth II was the teenager who trained as an auto mechanic during that war. Her coronation was the first TV I remember seeing -- my parents' marveling at the grainy live broadcast from Westminster Abbey -- boring processions of people in strange clothes it seemed to me, but still marvelous. As Elizabeth aged, Mother admired her stamina. Mother knew a thing or two about stamina herself. The monarchy doesn't much suit the contemporary world. Will Charles III be able to continue her myth-sustaining performance?
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