Meghan Markle is a Democrat, obviously.

By Fred Owens

Meghan Markle is a Democrat, obviously. She is hugely popular, intelligent and media savvy. She and Prince Harry will make a "nonpolitical" tour of our country in coming months. She will make Trump look like dog doo...... Oh, and she just married into  one of the richest families on the planet ..... The Windsors are much richer than Trump will ever be and they got their money the old-fashioned way, through inheritance.

What I just said is only speculation, but the Democrats do need a new face and she is available. Prince Harry does not have a job at this point but he is trained in ceremonial duties and would make a perfect First Gentleman.

Meghan is an American citizen and over 35. She is not prone to angry tweets at six a.m. A careful scrutiny of her early years might turn up something embarrassing, Certainly Prince Harry has to walk back a few stunts in his past. Here's hoping there's not too many show girls telling stories about him.

Assuming Meghan is even interested. But I'm thinking, once the wedding hub-bub is over, she might look around for something useful to do, and the Royal Family forbids meddling in English politics, but why not give Meghan a free hand in her own country?

The media adores Meghan. CNN can't get enough of her. Oprah is gonzo. George Clooney is pleasantly intrigued. Bernie Sanders might even admit to himself that he is getting a little too old for the job.

Or maybe not Meghan Markle, but someone like her --  young, bi-racial and moderate in expression.

Here's a closing touch that warms my heart:

Meghan Markle walked up the aisle by herself, most of the way, but she accepted the hand of an old man, Prince Charles, for the last gap in her journey.....Old men around the globe noticed this small courtesy.

Ben Munsey Leaped Over the Fence

 (it's a bit of a poem, part fiction and not entirely true)

Ben Munsey leaped over the fence that June day in 2002. He crashed the party at the Museum of Northwest Art in LaConner, the annual fundraising auction fueled by high-ticket prices. Munsey didn’t have the money and he didn’t believe he should have paid anyway.

Docents guarded the front gates of the museum that fine summer evening, smiling at the ticket holders, but glaring at street urchins like Munsey.

“I’m too told to be an urchin, I’m past fifty years now. I teach English at Skagit Valley College, but I’ll be damned if I’ll pay $150 to eat shrimp off an ice sculpture and speak nonsense with nobodies from Seattle who come to the valley to ride their bikes past fields full of sweating Mexicans picking strawberries. I live here. I’ve been here a long time, before they built this museum. There was an apple tree right here, the tree was here for years, in a field of tall grass, before they built the museum, which I call a mausoleum, a burial place for the living art which once graced this little town, before the swells came and bought it up, and the before the docents came to keep out the riff-raff. But I am talking to myself,” Munsey said.

He spotted Singin’ Dan, who used to live on the river, a former river rat like himself, a denizen of Fishtown and Shit Creek, a slum dog drummer on Bald Island summer nights. “Dan, I thought you didn’t live here any more,” Munsey said.

“Well, I don’t live here anymore,” Singin’ Dan said, “I sort of got married and I sort of live in Olympia now.”

“Okay, so maybe we can sort of get a beer or something,” Munsey said.

And they stood there on the sidewalk, watching the patrons ensconce from polished vehicles. “Pretty soon they’ll have valet parking,” Singin’ Dan said.

Then it was like – not a plan, no, without any intention, or desire, or any voice of complaint or rebellion, but as natural as the tide rising that Munsey and Singin’ Dan drifted around to the back entrance of the museum, where the busboys unloaded the catered dishes, where the portable fence was installed to guard the premises on this special fund-raising evening -- a fence that looked like a double dare to two old hippies.

Munsey and Singin’ Dan – years later they both said “I thought it was your idea” – but it wasn’t anyone’s idea, more like the purest of action, despite being much too old for such a stunt – they leaped over the fence, Singin’ Dan easily and thinner, but Munsey with a beer-filled paunch dragging over the top rail.

It felt like robbing a bank, Munsey said later, you might spend twenty years in prison, but for a few seconds you feel more freedom than you ever felt in your life – like a vision of ecstasy, like breaking the law is even breaking the law of gravity and you’re flying.

They dashed right into the main gallery of the museum, to the fountain of ice festooned with dainty bowls of shrimp and smoked salmon and real wine glasses for the white wine, people talking in summer dresses and heels and linen sport coats, juggling napkins, and some idiot playing the guitar in the corner to give it that lah-di-dah flavor.

Munsey and Singin’ Dan filled up their dainty plates, but the matron came barreling down – it was Kathleen Willens in a stern, very stern voice who came bearing down with the brunt of the law, because she had been told by the bus boys that two old hippies had crashed the gate and leaped over the fence.

In truth, Munsey and Singin’ Dan stood out from the crowd and, besides that, Willens knew them for who they were, knew that Munsey and Singin’ Dan needed to be watched and suspected. She marched up to them and asked to see their tickets, knowing as well as the skies above that they did not have any tickets

Willens could have let them stay, if only for a hoot. How did all that art get to the musuem if it wasn’t for a hoot?

But the hoot was over, there was no more drinking sake at Fishtown. No, by the summer of 2002 it was all in the can, under lock and key at the museum, and creatures like Munsey and Singin’ Dan may as well move on down the road. If you don’t have a ticket that’s just too damn bad.

Update.  This is a fictional account of something that happened in 2002. I do not have current information about the status of the museum. It might be just loads of fun to go there. I certainly wish them the very best. You can love art all you want, but it still takes a few dollars as well.

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Fred Owens
cell: 360-739-0214

My gardening blog is  Fred Owens

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