Fairy tales don’t always end in ‘happily ever after.’ 

It’s been a long time since my father or mother sat me on their knees and read me my favorite fairy tales. An essential part of a child’s early education, they warned of life’s pitfalls and they promised happy endings.

I’m not sure if such stories are still delighting the world’s children today—electronics have created new competition for the world of print. Now, kids are all glued to their iPads or mommy’s cell phone, playing games or googling photos of sub-Saharan women. Actually, it's a medical fact: The children of today are functionally computer-literate, straight from the womb.

While electronics may have hijacked a large percentage of young minds, the fairy tales of writers like Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (the Brothers Grimm), Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen—stories like Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White, to name a few—are some of the happiest memories of my earliest years.

As I understand it, these stories were originally written for adults, addressing the discontent of the impoverished, downtrodden masses and encouraging the belief that all could rise from their humble and miserable circumstances to lives of happiness and success. Almost all the stories offered a moral lesson—mostly how good, honesty and innocence will always prevail.

I’m just thinking: Maybe today’s replacements—computer games—aren’t really so different. After all, they present that same universal scenario: the good guys overcoming the bad. Though represented by patterns of electrons creating images on a screen, there are still heroes and heroines, scary nemeses that threaten their existence, curses and catastrophes that defy survival and magical resources, like in-flight replenishment of energy pellets, that can save the good and pure from the predatory evil that lurks all around us.

There was little question about it, I was able to hear enough of those lovely tales to make me irrepressibly optimistic in a world where optimism was not entirely justified; and I can appreciate, now, that fairy tales are written and read specifically with those positive effects in mind. During an era plagued by the fears of a relentless Cold War—and the very real threat that it could change in an instant into the heat of nuclear fission and more-or-less total destruction of our world—it was those amazing stories that eased the concerns of the world’s young by providing a scenario of beauty, the vanquishing of all adversaries, success, happiness and health.

I must have an amazing memory, because I can actually quote, verbatim, the opening and closing lines of those tales. “Once upon a time” was always the initial line and every story, no matter how dark, ended in the reassuring words, “and they lived happily ever after.” (See, my memory is incredible.)

Everyone knows how the stories develop. The reality is that the fairy tale is pretty much formulaic and predictable. There will be a boy or girl, endowed with the best of human qualities, who may or may not be treasured by their parents, or there might be an ugly duckling who is constantly insulted by the rest of his flock.

Take Snow White: A beautiful princess, endowed with the finest of qualities. She’s deeply hated by her stepmother, the queen, who is demoralized daily by her magic mirror’s response to the question, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” The mirror is really obstinate and always insists that the “fairest” is her stepdaughter, Snow White, probably because it was a cheap Chinese import bought at a dollar store. (They’re notoriously dishonest. Just as a matter of curiosity, it’s the same mirror that Trump looks into every morning.)

The queen, as you already know, hatches a horrible plan: Kill Snow White, and the queen will then be the “fairest in the land.” She has her loyal huntsman take Snow White deep into the forest, with a murderous intent. It turns out he’s a man of great empathy and finds himself unable to do the deed. He leaves her, instead, telling her to go far away from her wicked stepmother.

While wandering, Snow White finds the home of the seven dwarves, who provide refuge. But an old lady, selling apples, knocks on the door while the dwarves are out. Snow White, largely out of compassion for the woman’s obviously poor circumstances, buys one. Little does she know that it’s her wicked stepmother in disguise.

The old wives’ tale of “an apple-a-day keeps the doctor away” wisdom proves very unreliable—it didn’t consider the possibility of a poisoned one. A single bite from the apple, and Snow White falls into a deep and un-wakeable sleep. The dwarves return to find the unconscious girl, and they lovingly construct a glass coffin for her now-suspended life.

Of course, there’s someone who can awaken the young princess—a prince who discovers Snow White’s whereabouts. He takes her hand in his, immediately waking her from her terrible sleep.

And, you know the rest. The wicked stepmother disappears; the charming pair return to the magical life at the castle; they marry and live happily ever after, choosing to exercise their pro-choice for the preservation of their sanity and happiness. (Both end up in prison. It seems that the kingdom had strong abortion laws, and even the danger of insanity was not an exception.)

Well, folks, we are in the middle of the American Fairy Tale, somewhere in between the “once upon a time” and the “happily ever after.” As President-elect Donald Trump, in effect, stages his troops and tanks for his personal war on American democracy, we can only guess on the outcome. Apparently committed to dismantling our law enforcement, education, environmental protections, courts and international trade, only time will tell the rest of the story: Will the good guys win or lose?

Understanding that this fairy tale may not end up with the words, “happily ever after,” we can only hope that our country will, at least, survive.

The author is a retired businessman, novelist, columnist and former Vietnam-era Army assistant public information officer. He resides in Riverton with his wife, Carol, and their adorable and ferocious dog “Poppy.”