Continuity

When I was a boy, and ill with rheumatic fever, somebody sent me a small packet of postage stamps and a beginner’s collection album. My recovery took a matter of months, first in the hospital, then at home, mainly on the couch in the living room, where I could measure time with coming and going of freight trains beyond the corn fields stretching to the horizon of Michigan’s fertile Saginaw Valley.

At some point every day my mother would bring me a cup of tea, sometimes with a piece of home-made shortbread.

I loved the stamps, and used them to expand my then-limited knowledge of history and geography.

One noticeable item in stamps from all corners of the world was the image of young Queen Elizabeth II. This was the 1950s, and she had recently ascended to the throne upon the death of her father, King George VI, whose headshot still appeared on some of the older stamps in my nascent collection.

I remembered all this late Friday night and early Saturday morning as I found myself watching the televised coronation of King Charles III at Westminster Abbey. The formal proceedings had a surprising emotional impact on me, given I am not English, do not believe in royalty, and would be unlikely to stand out in the rain for hours to witness an archaic religious ritual.

Why then did this ceremony touch me at all?

I’m roughly the same vintage as Charles; my mother was born in Scotland and therefore was originally a subject of the crown, but I was born in Detroit and grew up as a first-generation American in a country that famously rebelled against the King 250 years ago.

On my father’s side, our ancestors came from Ireland and have been in North America since the 1830s. My father immigrated to the U.S. from Canada in the 1920s.

It’s difficult to explain, but as I grow older and the world continues to change at what often seems a confounding pace, I sometimes long for a simpler time, when I was back on that couch, sorting my stamps, and waiting for that next cup of tea.

Somewhere deep in my Scots-Irish DNA, I may just long for the comfort that comes from a bit of continuity in these discontinuous times.

LINKS:

• King Charles III and Queen Camilla are crowned in elaborate ceremony (NPR)

• As a King Is Crowned, Some Britons Ask Why the Monarchy Persists (NYT)

• The coronation of King Charles III: Memorable moments in photos and videos (WP)

• Texas mall shooting updates: 9 dead, including alleged gunman, 7 hospitalized (ABC) 

• Leaked docs show 'Putin's chef' is increasingly at odds with the Russian leader over Wagner mercenary deaths (Insider)

• Russian Unease Over Ukraine War Grows Amid Attacks and Leadership Rifts (NYT)

• The Independent Journalists Risking Their Freedom to Keep Reporting From Russia (WSJ)

• GOP moderates privately panic over debt ceiling deal (Axios)

• White House weighing the possibility of a short-term debt ceiling extension (NBC)

• McConnell warns he won’t back debt-ceiling increase without ‘substantive’ reforms (The Hill)

• Bracing for impact: Biden world preps for Hunter Biden fallout (Politico)

• OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says the remote work ‘experiment’ was a mistake—and ‘it’s over’ (Fortune)

• Man v machine: everything you need to know about AI (Guardian)

• Tim Cook Just Was Asked About AI. His 3-Word Response Was the Best I've Heard Yet (Inc.)

• AI pioneer says its threat to world may be 'more urgent' than climate change (Reuters)

• Bill Gates Says New Project is a Nuclear Breakthrough — Gates’ latest venture could change the trajectory of clean energy. (The Street)

• How Online Shopping Lost Touch With Reality (Atlantic)

• After Jan. 6 Sedition Convictions, Far-Right Threats Remain (NYT)

• Eight Georgia GOP electors accept immunity deals in Fulton Trump probe (AJC)

• Trump Is Showing Everyone Exactly Who He Is (a Sexual Predator) (TNR)

• No Retreat: The Dangers of Stand Your Ground (Reveal)

• Ginni Thomas to Be Listed on New York Stock Exchange (New Yorker)