Hobbit Day

Detail of Bilbo from a pencil sketch by J.R.R.T. Today (September 22nd) is Hobbit Day, marking the beginning of Tolkien Week 2024. Many observe the day with with birthday cake—in honor of Bilbo and Frodo, whose birthdays are today.  I'm thinking just as many celebrate with a tankard of beer from the Prancing Pony (yes, it comes in pints) and as many more with a pipe of good tobacco. It’s fairly common knowledge that one of the dharma doors to pipe smoking of the past 50 years or so is The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.  It was in fact mine, when in my first nine weeks of high school I was marooned at home with mononucleosis. After finishing my day’s academic work—which took about 90 minutes—I’d spend the remainder reading at whim.  That reading was drawn mostly from Ballantine’s Adult Fantasy series of the late 1960s and early 1970s, which included books by such greats as Lord Dunsany, H. P. Lovecraft, E. R. Eddison, David Lindsay, George MacDonald, and of course Tolkien.  I was so taken with Middle Earth that I knew I needed to learn to smoke a pipe.  My dad, a very irregular pipeman at the time, had two Kaywoodies in a drawer in the living room.  Armed with one of them and some Cherry Royale (from Ted’s Pipe Shoppe in Tulsa), I took my first steps on the road.  As Bilbo sings, The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. As far as pipes are concerned, it’s been a long, good road, looking back 51 years now. It’s brought me into the good fellowship not only of those who read this blog, but the best friends of my life.  So when Eric B. emailed me a few weeks ago and asked if I knew today was Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday and might we not find a way to celebrate Hobbit Day (yes, it’s been a real thing since 1978), my heart immediately warmed to it. But how? How else but by reverting to another “thought experiment” as we’ve done here so often in the past (and thank you, Walker Percy, for this fruit-bearing notion). Bilbo gazing at his rotation in the 1977 animated film What if we each become our own armchair cinematic “property master” by selecting appropriate Peterson pipes for  our favorite characters in Tolkien’s legendarium?  One immediate payoff is that we can thereby erase some of the goofiness of Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop paper mache frankenpipes in favor of real pipes, Peterson pipes, pipes that would have lent ever so much more grace and charm to his films. The Challenge Merit Badge  If you need a refresher, you’ve got time to rewatch the movies (there’s only six, after all)…