ANDY ROONEY

©2004 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

A Great Queen

Last Saturday, I looked out my office window, where normally I see nothing but a dull stretch of New Jer-sey across the North River, and there was the magnificent new Queen Mary practically in my back yard. It looks like a 50-story hotel laid on its side in the water. One thing that struck me was that there were no portholes, just rectangular windows in every stateroom.

I couldn’t remember when Mary was queen of England. I lived in London for a year. I like London and the Bri-tish people, but the idea of a grownup country having a king or a queen is ridiculous. Even in a college history course, I never mastered all their names.

My almanac lists two Marys who were queens of England. The first was known as "Bloody Mary" for good reason. She must not have been the queen the majestic "Queen Mary" sitting outside my window was named after. There was another Mary, undistinguished, who co-ruled with her husband, William, who came to the throne in 1689. It seemed unlikely the ship was named for a co-queen, either.

The naming of the original Queen Mary may have been a fluke. The story is that in 1934 Cunard officials wanted to name their new ship "Queen Victoria" after Britain’s longest reigning monarch. They went to King George V and said, "Can we name our ship for Britain’s greatest queen?"

George, whose wife’s name was Mary, said, "Certainly. My wife would be delighted." So they named the ship "Queen Mary" after a woman who was only a queen by marriage.

To me, the name written as "Queen Mary 2" has no class anyway. At the very least, they should have used Ro-man numerals and called it the "Queen Mary II." One of the biggest liners before the Marys and Elizabeths was called The Leviathan after the legend-ary water giant from Greek mytholo-gy. A better name.

When I was 5, my aunt and uncle lived across the river from where the big ships dock and they always took me to the cliff overlooking the harbor when one of them came in. The ships always had three smokestacks. The Queen Mary 2 doesn’t seem to have any smokestacks.

In about 1965, Margie and I sailed on the original Queen Mary with the great, though almost forgotten, Garry Moore. Cruising on a big ship is a luxurious way to cross the ocean, but dull. You just look out at the water, sleep and wait for the next meal. Fortunately, we ran into a monster storm. The propellers were coming up out of the water as we rolled over waves the size of mountains and that made things exciting. The captain said it was "the worst storm he had en-countered in 37 years at sea," but afterward, when I told someone about it, he said captains always say a storm is the worst they’ve encountered in 37 years.

I had an unusual experience with the Queen Mary several years later after it had been retired and parked in Long Beach, Calif., as a tourist attraction. We were filming the United States from a helicopter for a documentary and thought the docked Queen would make a good picture. It was warm and the sun was hitting me sitting in the bubble next to the pilot.

As we banked over the Queen for the cameraman, I dozed. I had a still camera, binoculars and a tape recor-der in my lap. As I slumped over, my arm hit the latch and the door flew open. I didn’t go out, but my camera, binoculars and recorder dropped like rocks into the water next to the old ship. I had removed a jacket with my wallet carrying my credit cards, li-censes and cash. That went out but it was light enough so it floated over land. As the pilot landed, the helicopter a truck roared up next to the Queen. The driver was laughing and waving my jacket.

"I got it," he yelled." It drifted out over the road!"

Looking out at the new Queen Mary from my office window, I had a lot of memories.