By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Staff Writer

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.

By now I 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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