Students of Raphael: Coronation of Charlemagne (1514-15)

"I had better consider myself worthy of all that bother."

His cat awakened the Thirty-Seventh Great-Grandson. He'd taken the day before off to nurse a painful muscle spasm and wasn't quite ready to face the day. The cat insisted. I can confidently report that this cat has our Great-Grandson wrapped around his paws. The Grandson cannot deny him anything, regardless of how shoddily that cat might choose to treat him. He might annoyingly yowl, but the Grandson never loses his ardor for that animal.

Unlike his Thirty-Seventh Great-Grandfather, our Great-Grandson was never instilled via coronation. He was never fitted for a crown or named Emporer of anything, let alone the first since Rome had fallen three hundred years earlier. Oh, how convenient, I can hear you scowling; of course, he identifies as the progeny of Charlemagne, King of the Franks, as well as Holy Roman Emporer, perhaps the most readily recognizable character in European history, the acknowledged father of Europe. It does me no good to plead utterly innocent, for this assertion isn't fiction. I have the complete progeny to prove it. Thirty-seven generations, nearly thirteen centuries, a millennium and a third of human history, and here I stand, recently awakened by the cat who utterly controls my destiny.

The Thirty-Seventh Great-Grandson was born on a kitchen table in the summer of nineteen hundred fifty-one, in the tiny small city of Condon, in Gilliam County, Oregon, just a stone's throw from where his mother's family had settled. He was born near the end of the Oregon Trail and would wonder where he was supposed to wander from there, for his forebears had forever been in the wandering business. They might have stuck somewhere for a few generations, but their eventual trajectory was always a more or less steady westerly drift. Being born out west left our great-grandson at an unacknowledged advantage. He would not suspect for many years that he had been born on a kitchen table in Heaven, the destination of innumerable generations' striving.

That kitchen table served as the surgery for that small city. The local doctor had delivered our Great-Grandson's brother, also an official Great-Grandson, there a year and change earlier. Their sisters would all be born a little closer to modern civilization. Being born on a kitchen table seemed quite the distinction to him as a child. Declaring himself as having been born on a kitchen table left him feeling somehow superior, like those presidents born in log cabins. These sorts worked themselves up from humble beginnings. He hadn't the slightest clue then that he was descended from the most royal king in the history of kings. It might have made a difference if he had known. He cannot imagine himself feeling as intimidated as he was when encountering long division had he known he was descended from a throne.

He imagines that he might have been more lion-hearted than cowardly lion, more patient and kind than stingy, more competitive, and less humble. Now, across the fog of so many generations, only legends remain of his great-grandpa Charlemagne. In his time, he had yet to become the legend he would become, though he was referred to as "Great" while still alive. Many probably thought of him as that son of Pepin The Short, destined to become King of the Franks but hardly Holy Roman Emporer material. Still, his heritage must have been quite apparent to him. He was undoubtedly treated as someone terribly special from his birth. That recognition probably put some unusual pressure on him. His youth likely proved plenty challenging to him, too. Nobody comes of age unscathed.

What does one do with a lineage like mine? Give me a famous great-grandfather and a nickel, and I'd have a nickel for sure. The credential seems imaginary. But then, doesn't everything more or less qualify as imaginary until it doesn't? A conviction might prove helpful whether or not it's fiction. The relative truth of the matter might not matter at all. I am The 37thGreat-Grandson. I was born on a kitchen table. My cat cries me out of my bed in the morning. I am fulfilling my role here as the crown of an uninterrupted string of creation. I had better consider myself worthy of all that bother.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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