Blog 2876 – 09.14.2023

Do Princesses Scrape Their Knees?

The answer to the question that today’s book title suggests is: “Yes, of course they do!” I remember as a boy that you could always tell the prettiest and most popular princesses by the scars on their knees caused by falls on the play ground while being chased by the boys. Scraped and scarred knees are a sort of badge of honor and approval for princesses.

I was sharing with my wife and our mother the other day about meeting a man on a seven week work trip to Aberdeen, Scotland some years ago. His name was Harry Hudson and he looked a lot like Dad Stokes. I knew the story would appeal to mom as Dad was the great love of her life. Harry had meet and spoken with the Queen twice in his lifetime, once at a factory he worked at as a younger man and more recently while on a walk to check off a Munro as he took a shortcut across her estate in Scotland. A Scottish Munro is a mountain over 3,000 feet high. There are approximately fifty of those and they are named Munro’s for Sir Hugh Munro who compiled the first list of the mountains known as Munro’s Tables in 1891. Scots pride themselves with how many Munro’s they have climbed in their lifetimes.

On Harry’s second encounter with the Queen she was driving herself around her property in an old Ranger Rover, one of her favorite pastimes and stopped to chat with one of her subjects another thing she enjoyed doing. Harry recalled that she asked him many questions as she really seemed interested to know her people. Prince Charles sat impatiently on the front passenger side of the vehicles and seemed to be in a hurry to be elsewhere. Perhaps he had a date with a would-be Princess with scars from scraped knees. Harry seemed less impressed with Prince Charles than with the Queen.

During my seven weeks in Scotland Harry showed me much of his homeland and I am forever grateful to have gotten to know Harry Hudson and to see his beloved Scotland through his eyes.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VslKeN7Jc6AwtOyZikf7vtTavr6NfZ7J/view?usp=drivesdk

Do Princesses Scrape Their Knees?