I dreamed of Prince Charles last night. Really. Yes, that Prince Charles. OK, he looked somewhat like my sweatheart, Jimmy (which was a real improvement for Prince Charles, believe me), but it was him, nevertheless. I didn’t remember anything exciting happening in the dream, just that Prince Charles was in it. Even so, when I told Jimmy about my dream, he looked at me like I had lost my mind, so I hurriedly explained why I thought I had the dream.

You see, most “boomer” generation women I know had a girlhood fantasy that they would marry Prince Charles. He was a real prince, for one thing. And he was eligible, for another. Plus, he spoke English, the Queen’s English. He wasn’t one of those princes off in some remote principality with a name you couldn’t pronounce. So, all that to the good, it didn’t hurt that he was athletic, had a great smile, loved riding and horses, and did all the princely things with required grace and charm. All told, my generation of girls and women grew up dreaming of marrying Prince Charles and becoming a real princess.

Then, around the age of 14, when the second British invasion happened, the Beatles and the Stones took over as every teenage girl’s British fantasy partner. Prince Charles was off the hook. He probably appreciated that, so he could go back to hunting and fishing and painting landscapes and not worrying about the young women around the world who had their eye on him.

Course, we all know what happened then. When bachelor Prince Charles was almost at the “is he or isn’t he” age, Lady Di stepped up and gave us the chance to experience, however fleeting and remotely, the real “princess” trip she took as his blushing, virgin bride.

What a trip it was. Two beautiful baby boys resulted from their union, insuring a lineage. Before our eyes, a young, insecure school teacher grew into a loving and caring mother, in spite of a difficult marriage from the start. Her tragic passing reverberated in most people’s lives. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I heard Princess Diana had been killed in Paris. It took a spot beside the vivid memory of another tragedy, learning of President Kennedy’s assassination, sitting in English class when I was 14.

Princess Di’s passing propelled Prince Charles into a new role, that of grieving father, consoling and nurturing his motherless sons, which made him, in his middle age, even more appealing and very human. Rather than doing a mid-life crisis end-run, however, and seeking another much younger, inexperienced woman to follow in Diana’s footsteps, Prince Charles did what he probably should have done from the first — marry the one woman, older and more worldly, attractive but no model, whom he apparently has loved for many years.

So, back to my dream. I have my prince, and his name is Jimmy. And don’t be surprised if you see Jimmy sitting next to you if anyone is traveling to Europe anytime soon. He said, in spite of my explanation, he was gonna go over and kick Prince Charles’ royal buns.

(Buffy Queen is a local writer/filmmaker and co-facilitator of Writers Alive! You can contact her at JafraBQ@aol.com.)