Happy Birthday to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien who would have been 115 today.<\/p>\n
The Birthday Toast is encouraged by the Tolkien Society who suggest the following<\/p>\n
On January 3rd Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author at 21:00 (9 pm) your local time.<\/p>\n
The toast is “The Professor”.<\/p>\n
For those unfamiliar with British toast-drinking ceremonies:<\/p>\n
To make the Birthday Toast, you stand, raise a glass of your choice of drink (not necessarily alcoholic), and say the words ‘The Professor’ before taking a sip (or swig, if that’s more appropriate for your drink). Sit and enjoy the rest of your drink.<\/I> (http:\/\/www.tolkiensociety.org\/toast\/2007\/index.html)<\/p>\n
Tolkien has affected my life in many various ways over the years.<\/p>\n
I can remember my father reading both the Hobbit and Fellowship of the Ring to me. I had to go to summer camp one year and we got to the point that Frodo was at the ford. I didn’t know what was going to happen to him for a week. I cried when Gandalf and the Balrog fought. Once my reading skills were better, I think I reread the trilogy and the Hobbit about once a year. (That and the D’Artagnan cycle)<\/p>\n
Almost 30 years ago, my parents gave me a copy of Silmarillion as a gift. It is a first edition however not a first printing. I read through that book and then went back and reread the trilogy. I can’t believe that Star Wars and the Silmarillion came out the same year.<\/p>\n
In 1978 I went with my friends to see the animated Lord of the Rings. I was enchanted with it. I have seen it since and really wonder what I was thinking but at the time I wore out the album listening to the sound track. I even saved up enough money to join the Lord of the Rings club they were promoting in the album. I still have pieces of the kit they sent me including the key chain. I also have my Lord of the Rings belt buckle that I wore proudly to high school. My brother got me the Aragon stand up from the local record store as a present. I kept that in my room for many years. I loved the voice of Aragon and didn’t know until years later that the actor who voiced him was John Hurt. Other odd trivia is that Anthony Daniels was the voice of Legolas.<\/p>\n
I started playing Dungeons and Dragons because of Lord of the Rings. There have even been a couple of gaming systems based on Tolkien’s world and even a few good ones.<\/p>\n
Then right before I started at Del Rey, I heard they were making a film of the trilogy. Since Del Rey was the publisher of the paperback editions, I got to see art work and photographs early. My boss gave me the Elijah Wood poster that was the promo poster. Peter and I went to see it with Ariel and were blown away. Ariel fixation on Orlando Bloom started right there. In pretty short order we got all 3 films and were transported to Tolkien’s magical land by Mr. Jackson.<\/p>\n
Funny story, I can remember that we were getting the books ready for the release of the Two Towers and the studio informed us that we couldn’t use certain characters on the covers (Gollum was one at the time) and No Ents were allowed. The art director came to me and asked me to look over the photos he had and tell him if we were looking at any Ents. I told him as long as we didn’t see any trees or tree bark, we were covered. There were a couple of cool shots of Treebeard in the set.<\/p>\n
Tolkien has been a connection between myself and many people over the years. I have made friends over our love of Lord of the Rings. I belong to a large group of fans who are both big Tolkien fans and rabid costumers. A friend of the family actually knew both Tolkien and C.S. Lewis so there is my 6 degrees of separation from the Professor.<\/p>\n
So raise a glass and salute a great man.<\/p>\n
I am grateful for Professor Tolkien’s body of work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Happy Birthday to John Ronald Reuel Tolkien who would have been 115 today. The Birthday Toast is encouraged by the Tolkien Society who suggest the following On January 3rd Tolkien fans around the world are invited to raise a glass and toast the birthday of this much loved author at 21:00 (9 pm) your local […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t