Quote of the Day: January 3, 2026

Lord. By the time I've gotten used to writing "2026" on my checks, it'll be 2027. (Note to self: Thank the Lord I seldom actually write a check anymore. In fact, I don't even know where my checkbook is...)

But here's the quote:

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo. "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

From The Fellowship of the Ring.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born 134 years ago (check the math; it's never my strong point) on January 3, 1892. His life and his literary canon are so well known that there's no need for me to recapitulate it here: I'll just add a bit of a personal story.

Tolkien (who was born in South Africa) moved with his mother to Birmingham in the UK at the age of three. What was supposed to be a short visit became permanent when his father, still in South Africa, died of rheumatic fever. Tolkien spent the next several years of his life in the English Midlands, in Birmingham. He was a student at Birmingham's King Edward's School (founded by Edward VI in 1552), whose other notable alumni include, in no particular order and among many others, Enoch Powell, Mark Steyn, Edward Burne-Jones, Lee Child (of "Jack Reacher" fame), two Nobel Laureates, and my Uncle Arthur. Arthur, who was fifteen years younger than Tolkien, inherited one of the great man's textbooks, with his signature, and met him at an Old Boy's reunion sometime in the late 1930s.

While he was living in Birmingham, Tolkien spent a great deal of time walking and hiking in the Malvern Hills (about 35 miles away). It's an area I love. I went to boarding school there, and hiking in the hills--which I discovered late in life--was also a passion enjoyed by my father (also from Birmingham, but not an alumnus of King Edward's, because he wasn't deemed scholarly enough). Instead, he was sent to a school that specialized in preparing young men for the military, something which worked out exceptionally well in his case. Anyhoo, Auntie Pat told me, not long before she died, that the adolescent Dad would often set out on his bicycle, with a well-stocked picnic basket, early in the morning, bicycle the three-dozen-or-so miles to Malvern, hike for a few hours, and then bicycle home.

I've wondered, ever since, if Tolkien did the same.

On our first trip to England, in the early 2000s, the late Mr. She and I went for a Boxing Day wander on the Malvern Hills. He, upon summiting at British Camp, looked around at the view--one immortalized by William Langland in Piers Plowman as "a fair field full of folk," and exclaimed, "My God. It's the Shire."

Yes, indeed.

So it used to be.