Thursday, June 16, 2011

BULL SHARKS and BIG BLUE HERONS

Some left over scraps from the wedding- I was preoccupied that the groom’s family follow the prescription of my mother-in-law who as a Missouri Protestant minister’s wife put together many a wedding in her day. She said the groom’s mother should wear beige (meaning drab and colorless so as not to steal the bride & Co. thunder) and his family should sit still and be quiet. We were doing fine until a nephew and wife decided to seat themselves just as it was time for the father-of-the-bride to begin their entrance. My son, seated on the row with them leaned over and quietly said hello to his cousin whom he had not seen in decades. Nephew demanded, “Who are you?” When son identified himself they stood, shook hands and had old home week! I apologized to the bride afterwards but she assured me she didn’t even notice. I also was apparently so busy recovering from that so I missed the groom fixated on the Bull shark swimming behind the ceremony as it took place. Apparently there was also a Big Blue heron not frightened from his fishing by the predator. Possibly they’re two pretty good symbols for a young couple starting a new life together (and the rest of humans as well) but let’s not dwell on that.
I finished writing a non-fiction piece of 40,000 words if any non-fiction publishers out there are reading this. It goes like this: one of the most condemned and vilified women of history, presents one of its greatest mysteries. Inspired fiction writers treat her kinder than writers of her earliest alleged non-fiction with the latter’s many self-evident errors. These blunders occurred because factual records like the State Papers of Thurloe and Clarendon, various government Calendars, Letters between rulers and/or administrators, Memoirs, and even Hotten’s Lists were not made public until usually centuries later. Her slanderers, not knowing or caring that reliable contemporaries were recording events which along with advances in science would one day prove their accusations impossible, are “hoisted on their own petard.” Search for her historic truth continues. One need only use a computer’s search engine to find the scandalous details recorded of her. She has been a popular subject and herein is a review of some reportedly non-fiction facts about her. She has inspired more defenders than accusers in the last two centuries and each defender examined the evidence and usually established only one or two new truths regarding her. Now time has established enough accumulated valid evidence at least to sketch her real character.
Heavy work.