Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Little Big Man

Today is the anniversary of the death of Prince Franz Joseph II of Liechtenstein.  It's a small place, known of late for bankers who put even the reticent Swiss to shame.  Also for only giving women the vote (in 1984).  We drove through there (mostly to get our passports stamped, back when you could actually get a passport stamped in Europe) and bought a tacky souvenir snow globe.

But the story is not the tchotchkes, or the diminutive size of the principality.  Oft large things come in small boxes, as did His Royal Highness' full name: Franz Joseph Maria Aloys Alfred Karl Johannes Heinrich Michael Georg Ignaz Benediktus Gerhardus Majella

Granted, it's not in the same league as St. Theodore the Studite, but that's one impressive moniker, right there.  And so good night, sweet prince.  And may flights of Mills Brothers* sing thee to thy rest.



* By coincidence, Donald Mills also died on this day.  Liechtenstein would have been a swinginer place with him.

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