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Old 11-12-2004, 02:23 PM   #321
mark12_30
Stormdancer of Doom
 
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Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Elvish singing is not a thing to miss, in June under the stars
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Well, if we're going to really reminisce...

My niehgborhood was built in an ancient apple orchard. A few of the trees were still standing when I was ten. But the nearest candy store was in the next town. To get there, my friend B. and I used to cut through the woods to the golf course and then take a back road from there. But cutting though the woods was delightful, because we walked on what we called "The Hobbit Trail". It began at the stone wall two yards back of my house, and cut through many acres of private woods (naughty us!) til it came to a ridge. (It seemed a great big ridge to us, who were small hobbits after all.) Beyond the ridge and past a hollow lay the vast rolling Downs of 'Maynard Country Club'. I now understand the true nature of the Greens-Wight, who vented his wrath on small children that put footprints in his greens and sand-traps.



Far beyond the Golf-Downs rose the buildings of men. In those days Sharkey's Mill Buildings were inhabited by Digital Systems (before they made it big). We hunted through several candy-counters to find what we sought. It was always a relief to be safely on this side of the Golf-Downs and once again travelling the Hobbit-Trail back home.

The Hobbit was read to my class in fourth grade. Let's see, that would have been 1968 or 69 or so?... Because by 1972, I had braved The Paper Store fantasy section (Main Street) and had purchased a Red-Heraldry-Box Ballantine paperback set of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

I remember when the Gold-box set came out a few years later I wanted one of those too. And the Red Leather edition was a faroff dream... Realised at last.
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