Obit For The Queen

Last year my friends Marcia and Julie decided to do something good for the environment. They invested money and time in establishing a beehive in their back yard. Their queen was an Italian bee. Recently they discovered that the colony had perished over the winter for reasons unknown. Since Marcia and I both have a fascination with obituaries, it seemed appropriate to honor their effort with a obit for the queen.

Italian Royal Immigrant Founder of New Colony

Isabella, Italian Queen of the royal family Apis mellifera ligustica, was discovered dead this week in the royal chamber of the Baltimore Avenue Takoma Park colony she founded. None of her children survived. The cause of death of this beloved matriarch and her brood remains a mystery. Experts at the Greenbelt Agriculture Center will perform a complete forensic investigation including autopsy to determine the cause of the death of the queen and her family. The buzz has been that an unusually snowy winter may have played a part in the failure of this colony.

Although of Italian origin, the young queen has a long apian lineage dating back to the Egyptian Pharaohs who used her symbol as a "Throne Name" depicted here.

Brought to the US to introduce her extensive knowledge of apiculture to Takoma Park, her short reign was marked by producing a swarm of descendants who were proficient in honey making and the pollination of many flora in the Takoma Park neighborhood. Fruits, vegetable and flowers of all types were dutifully served by the queen’s household. Familiarly known as "Honey" to her friends and neighbors, Isabella was known to embody true bee-uty. News of her demise stung many friends.

Publicly, the queen has maintained a reputation for service to the community. However, not much is known about the interior workings of this apian family as most of its domestic affairs were conducted in the seclusion of the family compound known as “The Hive.” It has been rumored that the queen herself committed polyandric incest by mating with several of her ne’er-do-well sons. Only her daughters have been observed outside of the family compound, combing the neighborhood flora for pollen or nectar, suggesting that despite her high regard, the queen may have enslaved her daughters in a life of ceaseless work.

A funeral is planned once the investigation of this strange catastrophe is completed. No details of the service are being released but those knowledgeable of the rites of this unusual family suggest that mourners will go out on a limb to wax sentimental wearing white costumes and attending a “smoker.” As with most funeral rites a speaker is expected to drone on about the Queen and her colony.













Apian funeral procession featuring traditional garb

The Experiment

In an English class taken in 1970, I was assigned to keep a journal. Originally my English professor recommended it as a source for writing topics. Well the class lasted a semester but the journal lasted for about 30 years.

My journal was an outlet for all the tangled emotions and experiences that a young man goes through. It was quite personal. All my sins are there, as well as hopes, dreams, and even some poetry. Starting in 1985, I made new journal entries electronically on an old no-hard-disk Sanyo computer. Suffering from chronic depression all those years and not knowing it, coated the whole work with a dismal gray film. Every 10 years or so, I would go back to those old composition books and computer files read from the beginning to end.

The decennial reading of the journal was an enlightening exercise in reminding me where I had been and where I might be headed. In some areas I had greatly matured and in others I was still making the same mistakes as I was when I was 18. I kept promising not to continuing making the same mistakes. Le plus ça change….

About a decade or so ago, I discovered my depression and got treatment for it. At around the same time, some personal events changed my perspective to a more positive one. I noticed one day that I had been busy living my life and had not bothered to make a journal entry for over a year. Instead of using my journal to moan about my rather uninteresting life, I had started to live it. The need for journal entries just melted away. There have been times of significant events where I felt I should record my thoughts and experiences as part of my “record.” The events of 9/11 come to mind along with the death of my mother at Christmas time 2003. But the journal just did not work for me anymore.

For many years I have thought about and played with the idea of writing essays – not for publication just my own pleasure. Sometimes in the process of organizing my thoughts, the logic or illogic of a particular position becomes clear. Over the years I have engaged friends of like intellectual curiosity in discussions of a variety of topics. Some were face to face chats, some were written, mostly via email. I also like to travel and write about my experiences (for myself). It is a means of remembering small things that might be lost over time. My most extensive journal was made while on a month-long trip to Europe by myself.

Over the past couple of years I have gotten suggestions to write a blog. “Who would want to read my silly musings?” I asked, more than once. I did not take the suggestions seriously. Lately, those suggestions have come around again. This time I asked myself “Why not?” It doesn’t matter if anyone reads them or not, but if you set yourself the goal, and proceed to write, perhaps one day in the far future some lonely archeologist will stumble across your thoughts and at least have some insight as to how one person of the 21st century saw his world and culture. Perhaps in the here and now some like-minded curious person will stumble across this little space and want to engage in a genuine conversation or debate. A devil’s advocate can only make my thinking clearer and more interesting.

I chose “Multiverse” as a name because it encompasses all that exists, whether we can see it or not. Topics I write about will span many areas of my interest, some very serious, and some admittedly very silly.

If you are reading this, I hope you will find something to spur your imagination or make you laugh. I don’t care. If you enjoy what you read come back and read more. If you don’t like it, fine, move on. Comment all you wish as long as you respect the rules of common decency.

Thank you! Welcome to the experiment!