In the 70's when this country boy was first headed up out of the hollows of Kentucky to find a bigger world in the college, J.R.R. Tolkien was all the rage. I'd seen glimmers of the Tolkien experience in my high school in a deliciously handsome black three-volume set of The Lord of the Rings radiating the Eye of Modor which was positioned way up high on the top of a shelf well beyond the reach of grubby teenage hands and the Librarian was not the sort of lady one asked to be let handle the treasures of her sanctum. So I could only stare and wonder.
Once I got to college I used my food money allowance (bless my parents) to buy books, and the best of them was a four-volume paperback set of Tolkiens Middle Earth saga. I had the mysterious The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in hand at long last. When I married my beloved wife gifted me with a hardback of The Hobbit to celebrate our six-month anniversary which I still treasure, and I never experience the story without a special tenderness for her.
That was the case in spades, when thanks to our current circumstances which make us prisoners of our homes, I felt a need to experience the story yet again. (Truth told, I for one don't really mind all that much, my work is well and easily done here and if I could visit a few folks a bit there's be little stress. I know that's not true for most, but it is for me.)To pass the time I broke out some vintage collections, and by vintage I mean audio cassette (once a cutting edge technology) renditions of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings by a radio troop called Mind's Eye. It's pretty nifty to enter Tolkien's world via other avenues, it gives it freshness and save for the songs (which are mutilated) it's not a bad presentation at all. I've listened to The Hobbit and now I think I'm ready for the sequel. I'll report back.
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