OH ROYALTY

             Many of you know I've enjoyed a developing friendship with Prince Charles.  He's come to hear me yak in Great Britain and then he invited me to his special place in Dumfries, Scotland.  Turns out he purchased a slew of FOOD INC. documentaries and gave them to all his friends.  Apparently that's how I got on his radar.

             Influential people are working behind the scenes to get him to stop by the farm when he's next in the U.S.  So I thought the Mother Earth News (MEN) Fair here next year July 17-18 would be a great opportunity to invite him.  I mean, it's not every day that a few thousand people collect on a dirt road to fellowship over homesteading and farming.  And I sure hope you're planning to come.  Scuttlebutt has it that rooms in Staunton are beginning to fill up for that weekend, even though fair tickets have not yet gone on sale.  My dream is 10,000 people over the two days.  That'll make a statement to Virginia--unorthodoxy is alive and well, thank you very much.  The revolution is bigger than you think.

             Anyway, I've done some sleuthing, but alas, the protocols governing British royalty generally and His Royal Highness (they say it HRH) Charles, Prince of Wales, prohibits any of them doing tours of the U.S. during a presidential election year. 

             How was I to know?  Good grief, if I'd known that, we could have pushed this shindig off a year and maybe gotten him.  Bummer.  It's just one of those cultural nuances that we Americans in our free-wheeling individualism can't imagine and certainly don't appreciate.  What do you mean I can't travel to the U.S. whenever I want?  I'm the next king, for crying out loud.

             "No, your highness, you may not go this year."  Can't you just hear it?

             So we're all suffering from the prohibition.  This will absolutely not diminish our party, but it's interesting to know even Prince Charles has restrictions.  Oh, he can't drive either.  Did you know that?  He has to be chauffered.  What a drag.

             As much as we Americans detest it, don't you find royalty fascinating?  What is it about royalty that so captivates the human heart?