[Keith Falkner]

This has nothing to do with motorcycling, but it has some Canadian content, eh?

The second line of Britain's national anthem, which was our
anthem when I was young, says, "Long live our noble queen."

Every word of that is solid gold stainless steel 100% wool, folks.

Of her long life, there is no doubt, but please consider the personal risk she ran by going to Ireland. Memories are long, and resentment runs deep, so she and Phillip faced the dangers posed by intransigent and resourceful people, to whom conflict is permanent. The history of rebels in and for Eire is bloody indeed.

So I salute her courage. It is, in the word of the song, noble.

Today I played "House of Orange" by Stan Rogers. He said he would never write a political song, but he did. He wrote this, and it was his very last song of so many wonderful songs he wrote for us, yet a tragically small fraction of what he could have written.

Here's the song: YouTube - ‪Stan Rogers The House of Orange‬‏
(no video, just Stan's smiling face.)

Keith

 

[water warrior]

I personally don't get all lathered up about Royalty and whatnot but they, the Queen and Prince Phillip did make a dangerous trip. There are surely still lots of folks there who have been brought up to hate the English no matter what the circumstances. Hopefully the Royal visit did accomplish whatever it was intended to do. Next........the middle east.

 

[Keith Falkner]

Frequent visitors to Canada.

I remember going to the train station in London Ontario to see Princess Elizabeth when she made her first visit to Canada, in 1951. I was sitting on my father's shoulders and waving a Union Jack and cheering, along with thousands ... well, maybe hundreds, I wasn't counting ... of other Canadians. I recall, perhaps accurately, that she and Phillip were standing on the little platform at the back of the last car of the train and waving right back at us as the train carried her toward exotic places such as Chatham and Saskatchewan.

My father and then hers died a few months later, and things changed.
And they are still changing, but many things endure. I am glad that
Queen Elizabeth is respected, because I think she does her peculiar
job very well. Sure as hell, I would not want it.

She disassembled a Volkswagen, you know, then she put it back together and it ran. I suppose she could change the air filter on a V-Strom, but I doubt she will be doing anything like that soon.

And I will be visiting Canada again soon, so I better get back to work.
Keith