Once Upon A Realm

A classic and funny picture (based on an equally great stage play) with an amazing cast!

It was a cold late December Tuesday
Mere hours from Y2K
A century passing into memory

That morning I saw while riding the bus
A white man offer his seat to
A woman of color, going to work
Without grandeur, pomp, or fuss
Just a tip of his hat and a smile

Later, close to noon, I saw a teen
Walk into a 7-11 too soon and
Collide with a shoplifter running
From the scene, escaping the store
A brief grapple and he dropped his score

In the evening I watched the news
And heard of a woman, once abused
Stand bravely in court and face her ra**st
A man who had taken her innocence
And how the jury was swift in its justice

As I drifted off to sleep that night, I dreamed
And beheld a white horse, but his name that
Sat on him wasn’t Death, and
Hope followed with him, the past fading
Into a new millennium

You’ll have your day in the sun
Might be two, or even three
But probably only one
Your fifteen minutes of fame
When you’re top of your game
The spotlight’s warm and bright
And the world seems right

Yet sunset will indeed come
Your day soon over and done
Night will set in, sadness for a spell
Hurt as if you fell
From a self-made peak of grandeur
Forgetting that the sun like life moves
In a cyclical circle of shade and splendor

You’ll see moon and stars
Though from afar
Softly ushering you off stage
As time turns another page
So that memories of beams once
Reflected in your aging eyes can guide
Teaching the young sun-seekers with pride

Veronica Carlson & Kate O’Mara from the Hammer Films production of “The Horror of Frankenstein” (1970)

Margaret Lindsay was one of a handful of openly le***an actresses in 1930’s Hollywood. She refused to have a sham “lavender” marriage and lived openly with her partner, actress Mary McCarty, until Mary’s death in 1980. Margaret passed the following year.

Appropriately, Lindsay is referenced in “They Don’t Ride Horses in L.A. Anymore” by Ariel Archer. Both she and Alivia Chambers worked for Warner Bros. in the 1930’s, and Chambers (herself likewise a le***an, though closeted) doubled for her in “The Dragon Murder Case” (1934), “Bordertown” (1935), and “The Florentine Dagger” (1935).

Which is why books like the “Once Upon A Realm” series are so helpful and important!