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THE QUEEN I can't remember the exact date that I met the Queen. I believe it was sometime in 1991, shortly after my first book, "Orphan, A true story of Abandonment, Abuse and Redemption," was published. I had never met a queen before and I was rather struck by her manner and her rather course demeanor. Her hair was a bit a muss and she was not wearing the quality of clothing that I would have associated with someone of such fine quality. As time went by, she and I became friends and we talked on a daily basis. Like me, she was very strong willed and very much opinionated. Within weeks, she and I were at each other's throat. It appeared that every conversation we had would end in some type of disagreement or an argument. Many times the local peasants would peek out their windows to see her and me arguing and screaming at one another in the middle of the courtyard. Sometimes, days would pass before she and I would look at one another, much less speak to one another. One day, for some unknown reason, the queen was asked to leave her castle. I watched out my window as she removed her belongings. No longer having royal carriage or a driver to assist her, she packed her few treasures and carried them into a small rundown, blue and white, rusty, dirty old 1968-6X10 travel trailer, which was parked in a grassy uncut field, some 20 yards from the main castle. Still mad, my heart began to ache at her dilemma. Every hour or so, I would walk to the window and look in her direction. Seeing no movement at all, I could only wonder what was going through her mind. There comes a time, no matter how mad we might be, we must put aside our personal feeling, whether right or wrong, and do what we feel in our heart is the right and just thing to do. She had given me cigarettes when I had none to smoke. She offered me drink when I could only drink from the stream. She offered me words when silence was my only friend. She gave me friendship when I was alone and in need of comfort. The Queen came from a very rich family. A family, who adopted her, as a small child, then treated her as if she was nothing more than a possession. As a child, she was served and ate from only the finest of china, wore only the finest of fashions and traveled the world. Many a time the winds of loneliness blew through her hair as she looked across the ocean waves from the bow of many a large yacht. Now, at age sixty-two, she sits all alone in six foot by ten foot rusting metal box. Thankfully, today she is living in another castle; a mobile home just three doors down from my mobile home castle. We now visit and talk almost every day. Once in a while, she and I will share the texture of fine paper plates as we eat a charcoaled grilled meal together. The ringing of crystal can still be heard in the distance as we make a toast with our clear plastic cups, purchased from the local dollar store just down the street. We sill argue and laugh to together, but we have set our limits and boundaries and we both have agreed that common courtesy shall always be the rule of law. I have learned much from the Queen and I am lucky to have her as my friend.