I MUST BE GETTING OLDER-OR-TEMPIS DOES FUGIT

Yesterday, Sunday 19 December, 2010, there was a blue Cadillac sedan in front of Centerport, NY's Our Lady Queen of Martyrs Church when we arrived for 10 AM Mass. It had one of those new Sunkist Orange colored NYS license plates. It was a vanity plate reading: B-AIRLIFT. I nodded and smiled as BA and I entered the parish about 20 minutes early for Mass.

The first usher we met looked to be "about the right age." So, I went up to him and asked: "Do you know who owns the Cadillac with the Berlin Airlift license plates" I queried. "I do. It's me. How did you know that was what the plate was all about?" A pleasant conversation ensued about Frankfurt to Templhof flights, C-47's, and other aircraft, mega-tonnage of food and clothing delivered, and ended shortly after the comment "Truman did this right." I was smiling at this historic chit-chat until the former Airman said: "We're you there?" That brought me up short, but not quite as short as two summers past when a clerk at the Ellenville, NY McDonald's asked if "you want the Senior Coffee?"

Mass proceeded yesterday, officiated over by the Rev. Dr. Edward Downing Phd, SJ. During his homily, he spoke about King Ahhas, and dynastic succession in monarchial societies. He alluded to the Edward VIII abdication, noting that the late Duke of Windsor was referred to by family as 'David,' whereas his younger brother Albert was officially known pre-abdication as the Duke of York. I was fine with that recitation until the Rev. Downing, who holds a Phd in Economics and is former dean at Fordham noted: "...and the Duke of Windsor was known to his family as 'Bertie."

Perhaps because of the recent premier of the movie "The King's Speech," a movie about George VI, after Mass, and after almost all parishioners had receded, I asked Fr. Downing: "Are you sure that Edward VIII was known as 'Bertie,' since I believe that the Duke of York, George VI, was known as 'Bertie' as a derivative of his given name of Albert, which was a nick-name to which the late Queen Mother, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon referred to her husband; to wit, Bertie?"

Ever the sage academic, our visiting priest from the Bronx was gracious in conceding that he was operating on the assumption of information given to him by another, and that in fact, 'Bertie' would make much more sense as a nickname derived from Albert than it would from 'David.' Got to love those Jesuits, even the ones whose baritone voices during the homily make you think they missed another career as a DJ!

Oh, and no, I wasn't a participant at the Berlin Airlift nor was I present when a lithe Baltimore divorcee caused a royal abdication and the subsequent royal 'elevation' of 'Bertie,' a.k.a. George VI...back in the day when British monarchs were also styled as The Defenders of the Faith (as heirs to Henry VIII and the Church of England), as well as The Emperor or The Empress of India.