March 10, 1965
Jocie Brooke here reporting from Main Street, Hollyhill, Kentucky.
Did you ever want to be a princess? Like in the fairytales. A Cinderella or Snow White. But you know, when you think about it, those two had a pretty rough time. Cinderella had to sleep in the ashes and talk to mice, and Snow White had to run away and hide out with the seven dwarfs to keep the wicked queen from getting her. (Quick question – can you name them all? Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Grumpy, Happy. Oops, I’m stuck. Do you know the others?)
But forget the missing dwarfs. Back to princesses. Then there was Sleeping Beauty. So okay, beauty in your name has to be good, but not sleeping a hundred years. What’s wrong with having a princess who is just that? A princess who doesn’t have to have the unhappy before the happy ever after. Oh, I guess that doesn’t make much of a story for ordinary folks to read.
But Dad was telling me about a real story he saw today about a Princess Margriet of the Netherlands. She got engaged. Dad showed me a picture of her. She’s very pretty and looks happy and so maybe her happy ever after started the day she was born to a King and Queen. A real princess.
I’ll bet she doesn’t stumble over her own feet or get chocolate ice cream all down the front of her blouse when she’s eating an ice cream cone. She’s probably never said something she shouldn’t have said or lost her diamond bracelet.
That’s something I haven’t done either – the losing the diamond bracelet part. Okay, so what if I don’t have a diamond bracelet to lose. I’ve got other things I bet she doesn’t have like a dog with a cock-eyed ear like Zeb or a crazy Aunt Love or a “granddaddy” from Jupiter.
Wes says I could be a princess on Jupiter. That they need princesses up there, but hardly anybody wants the job because princess dresses are full of starch and jeweled crowns might look all glittery but they’re heavy and a girl has to sit like a statue to keep it from falling off. He says no way could a princess ride a bicycle or on the back of a motorcycle.
He didn’t have to tell me all that. I already knew I didn’t want to be a princess. I like being who I am. Jocie Brooke.
How about you? Did you ever wish you were a princess? What do you think you’d enjoy most about being a princess? What do you think would be the worst part?
Oh, and I still haven’t heard from Sharon who won my giveaway here. I’ll try to contact her one more time and then if I don’t hear back from her, I’ll pick a new winner. So Sharon, if you see this, check your messages.