I was

crowned a king at the age of eight.

A lot goes

in to crowning a king. First, there is a spelling

contest, then there is the running of an obstacle course,

and finally there is an essay contest. It may not be

pulling a sword out of a stone, but I defeated my peers

and accepted the crown.

You see, my

elementary school, McKay School in Beverly, Mass.,

started a three-year project on the Middle Ages and the

Renaissance when I was in the third grade. Everybody

selected a role in the feudal system and then there was

the contest for the king and queen. All the boys and

girls entered their respective contests and I was

selected. Not a bad feat for a beanpole of a kid whose

largest accomplishment to that point was eating an entire

house made out of Play-Doh.

On my rise

to the top, I won over fourth and fifth graders who were

much bigger than me. Some of my foes were the older

brothers of my classmates. My reward wasn't simply a

cardboard crown spraypainted gold either; I also got a

queen. She was a beautiful blonde fifth grader named

Rebecca. An older woman, Va-Va-Va-Voom.

Then the

show started. The first thing on the agenda was a

coronation. The ceremony was conducted in Hammond Castle

in Gloucester and all of the people in school and all of

their parents were invited. The mayor of the city played

the pope who presided over the crowning of the school's

new king and queen. It was a big she-bang and we got into

all of the local newspapers.

After the

coronation, there were a number of events that my queen

and I had to preside over. There were feasts, held in Ye

Olde Cafeteria, but because there were two periods of

lunch, we were to be present at both of them. There was a

May Fair, complete with jesters, battles, games and, of

course, dancing around the maypole.

And then

the year was over. I would remain the king for another

two years, but it was time for my queen to move on to

middle school.

There was

much sadness, but even Henry the VIII got over his

ex-queens. As I started fourth grade, I got a new queen.

She was another fifth grader named Lisa. She was not as

beautiful as Queen Rebecca, but she had a very regal

manor. The year passed with many of the same events as

the year before. I got into the paper another couple of

times and then it was time for another queen to leave.

was a fifth grader and my interest in girls started to

heat itself up slightly. There was a special feeling

about some of the girls in my class and whenever I heard

Whitney Houston that year, I could tell that that music

was for a "special occasion." My new queen

wasn't a queen at all, but a princess. She was a third

grader named Kristen, cute as a button but only 8. I was

a big 10-year-old now and this whole regal role-playing

was old hat. You eat the lunches twice, you smile big for

the camera, and you learn your two or three lines and

ignore the kids calling you "Goober" and

"Nerd" for the most part.

And then,

quite suddenly, it was over. I would no longer be king. I

would graduate from elementary school soon and move on to

the middle school down the road. Was this it? Would these

past three years be my peak, the pinnacle of my young

life?

Sure, I

could be a bigwig at McKay, but would anybody care in

middle school? Could I even count on my queens who had

moved on ahead of me? The answer was no. I barely spoke

two words again to Queens Rebecca and Lisa. It was a

marriage of convenience. They merely loved me for my

position and power.

It was a

long time before I got my picture in the paper again,

almost four years. By that point I was a beanpole

14-year-old who just got the lead in my high school's

production of "Brighton Beach Memoirs." I would

feel like I was king again for a little while, but not

for long. It seems as you get older, your delusions of

grandeur lose some of their grandeur.

I did see

Princess Kristen again, when I was a senior in high

school and she was a sophomore. We had completely

forgotten about each other, but we did look awfully

familiar. I dug through my scrapbook at home and found a

picture of me and the princess at a royal feast that made

an edition of the local newspaper. I showed it to her the

next day and for a few months, Camelot was reborn.

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