Mood:
crushed outTopic: "Sandy Hook" (8)
Frodo is pretty sure the month was September, although the year remains fuzzy and complicated. He does not remember if anyone walked him to school on his first day in the first grade at Sandy Hook Elementary School. If anyone did, it was Bilbo.
The school did not have enough desks for each student, so Frodo shared a desk with another small Hobbit. Frodo does not remember his name.
One day, during recess, Frodo and another small Hobbit were playing as a team in hide-and-go-seek and outsmarted everyone else by entering the blackberry brambles just outside the playground. Just then the bell rang, signaling the end of recess, and calling Frodo's team back to class, immediately. Frodo can still see the teacher's disapproving glare when the two Hobbits finally returned to their seats, some 10 or 15 minutes late. Frodo does not remember her name, either.
He who was once Frodo's teammate in that blackberry bramble died not too long ago. Frodo remembered his name only after someone, a higher authority to be sure, reminded Frodo of the event, and the name long forgotten.
Frodo's family moved to the Shire in the middle of that first school year, and Frodo never returned to the Sandy Hook Elementary School, even to visit. Perhaps that is why Frodo remembers so little about the names and the faces that first shared in the adventures of a Hobbit fresh off the farm. Frodo never looked back, for he had new worlds to conquer, and too much promise to keep.
Frodo is reminded of the nameless ones by the events of the past few days at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. Despite the fact that it is not the same school, just a coincidence in nomenclature, and underscored by the fact that Frodo is not even sure in what state it stands, it makes for interesting thoughts and worthwhile prayers.
The Sandy Hook Elelmentary School that Frodo knew stands on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Shenandoah and the Potomac. It could be in one of three states that border each other on the banks of the great rivers. Where it is, is not important. What it means, is something else.
