My first Tolkien Reading Day!

It's true . . . this year, I participated in my first Tolkien Reading Day, which occurs every March 25th (the day Frodo threw the Ring into the Crack of Doom). Normally, even though I'm a member of the Tolkien Society, I don't do fannish things. Not that I object to them for any reason -- I've just never really done them. 

This year's participation, though, came about because someone I went to high school with, whom I'd only spoken with maybe twice in the last two decades, sent me a fb message asking if I'd like to do join in their yearly Tolkien meet-up to celebrate. Given the coronavirus, it was on Zoom, of course. I was a bit skeptical, but hey, I participated,, and it was surprisingly fun. There were four of us, including myself, and we chit-chatted about Tolkien and the T. Society's suggested theme, which this year was "nature and industrialization." It was kinda nice talking about literary things with people who weren't academics, and just goes to show (if there was ever any doubt) that you don't have to be an academic to have smart, interesting things to say about an author.

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