Mood:
not sureTopic: "Why are you here"?(3)
Whether in the course of human or natural events, Frodo is humbled by the balance. Some men are born to be warriors, while others are farmers. Still other men know not the difference between a pitchfork and a bayonet. In the Gardens of the Shire there are hawks and there are songbirds; there are earthworms, and there are moles. Indeed, there are things which grow and blossom whose very names may not yet be known to those who are supposed to know. They are however, there for a reason.
Not.
There is absolutely no reason on the face of this small blue planet for the yellow pine tree to exist. Its soft wood produces an inferior cut of lumber, and its sap is so poor in quality that even the turpentine produced by the black pine is unworthy of processing in this lamentable botanic creation. In fact, it is the yellow pine which most frequently splits and falls during inclement weather, doing damage to traffic and to homestead. Mulch (the cheapest one can buy) and pressed lumber are the only by-products of this denizen of the forest which have any commercial value, and, in truth, no one would miss these products if they weren't there at all. Frodo is down to but four of these monstrosities within the confines of the Shire, and they are in no location to portend a threat to anything held dear.
Yellow pines make Frodo think about other things he can do without. Yellow Jackets, the yellow-and-black bee-like insect that tunnel in the Gardens of the Shire, and almost any other inconvenient location in Middle Earth, is a constant threat to man and beast. When disturbed, the swarm is swift, painful, and occasionally deadly. Frodo is no fan of the Yellow Jacket, and he has absolutely no idea what it is that Adam must have done to piss God off so badly that he made these disgusting and valueless creatures.
Which brings Frodo around to "Evangelicals." Frodo was born one time, and according to Bilbo's frequent discourse on the subject, that one time was more than enough. Concerned parents and a developing curiosity brought Frodo to a confrontation with many questions of value, and the accumulation of information, and perhaps even a bit of wisdom, as God intended, created the Hobbit. So why would Frodo need to be, in the parlance, "born again?" There is no new epiphany if Frodo has merely paid attention along the way, so what, he asks, would Frodo have in common with someone who felt as if he, or she, had to start all over again in some sort of more personal relationship with the Supreme? This is a question which does not keep Frodo up at night. It merely makes him wish that wonks of this nature would follow the Yellow Jacket back into the hole of ignominy.
The stream of consciousness now brings us back to something almost as worthless as a Yellow Pine. That, for the new reader, would be any person, living or dead, who claims to be a Texan. It includes anyone with a bumper sticker that reads "Don't Mess With Texas." In Frodo's humble opinion, had the United States merely lost the War with Mexico more than 165 years ago, we would today have a perfect nation. Every problem in America today can be traced back to some sort of screw-up by somebody from Texas. Funny it is, that no Texan is useful for any purpose other than mulch or pressed lumber. Then again, those are still products for which we have no true need.
