A while back, LC and I were doing some spring cleaning and I found the poem my Dad wrote....I also found something I'd written for her on her **th birthday. She thought it'd be fun to put it here, so here ya go:
As your **the birthday approaches, I am suffering from a lack of time and good ideas as to how to celebrate it. I suppose that I shall do what i always do when faced with such a situation: Write something................magical!
THE PRINCESS
Once upon a time, in an almost forgotten land, there lived a regal Queen. She met a wonderful man, not a King, but a Duke....the Duke of Marlborough. She was quite taken with him and, after a courtship, they were married. In those days, it was quite common for women to be rulers. Whomever was firstborn, boy or girl, would be First in the Royal Line of Succession, so it came as no surprise when they had their first child, a girl, she was taught all the good things that this Queen knew about what rulers do....about compassion, love and understanding. She learned her lessons well and studied hard, but what she REALLY wanted to do was to go outside and play in the dirt, kind of like a boy. Now, the Queen was no stranger to these feelings, having had them herself as a child. Most days would find the Princess and the Queen at the frog-pond on their estate. She would play with the frogs and talk to them as if they were people.
One day she read a story in a book about a Princess who was sad and this Princess went to a pond and found an enchanted frog, who wasn't really even a frog. He was a Prince who had been changed into a frog. When the Princess in the story kissed the frog, he changed back into the handsome Prince he had been before and the fell in love and lived happily ever after. She thought the story was rather silly because frogs aren't Princes and Princes aren't frogs, except sometimes metaphorically. That didn't stop her from trying it once or twice when the Queen wasn't looking!
Anyway, it never worked and gradually she grew up and stopped playing in the dirt so much. In fact, she grew to be a very beautiful Princess who attracted a lot of attention from suitors as she neared marrying age. Her father, the Duke, had many offers for her hand, but he had determined that his Princess would decide for herself whom to marry. She was quite fond of some of them....there was Joseph of the Sheffield Elliotts, whose singing voice was admired throughout the country. However, Joseph was away constantly on Leppard hunts. She was happy for the attention, of course, but she really wanted to marry a man just like her father, the Duke. The Duke was strong and stern, but one could never find a man more loving of his Queen. He set the bar incredibly high and she began to wonder if there were such a man out there for her.
As time passed, there came also to be two brothers, the princes. The Duke decided the castle had grown too small for his brood and set about trying to find a larger castle with more amenities. He searched far and wide, high and low, and settled upon a castle on the Plains of Tamora. The Princess liked her new room and began decorating it with her collection of plaster animals and some pictures of her many suitors. The estate was much larger than their old one, with many wooded trails and ponds.
The Princess would often find herself wandering on the trails and one day happened upon the largest of the ponds. She remembered how silly she had felt when she kissed a frog or two at a pond very like this one at their old castle. But she did remember the story.....hmmmmm.....She supposed the story wasn't any more true today than it was then. Still, would it hurt to try kissing one now? There were so many frogs at this pond she didn't know which one to choose! She found a nice plump one and decided to kiss that one. Before she could raise the frog to her lips, the frog said, "Please, fair Princess! I am but a normal frog and would only give you warts if you kiss me. I have always been thus, ever since I can remember. I was kept in an evil witch's lair and have only recently escaped. I cannot allow one so fair to get warts!". Well, the Princess was stubborn and quite unused to being told what to do, least of all by a frog. She kissed him anyway.....and something Magical happened! The frog turned into an Electrician! He wasn't really all that much like her father, the Duke, but he had a certain charm and could make her laugh quite easily. He was reasonably handsome and, through much begging, was able to convince the Princess to marry him. Her mother, the Queen, loved the Electrician the moment she had seen him and the Duke was kind enough to give his blessing to them both. They were married in the spring three years after his transformation. They were very much in love and lived, you can guess, happily ever after!
