Following through on a New Year’s resolution/threat, I’ve spent the last month scouring the house, attic, basement, nearby cairns, and local graveyards looking for my set of bagpipes.
Let me back up a bit.
Long ago, when Hobbits lived in holes in the ground with round doors, I took a few bagpipe lessons from Pipe Major Doug Stewart. It was a lot of work wrestling that instrument into playing something that resembled music, but eventually music did play, and I even managed to play bagpipes in four weddings.
I was very much a neophyte player, mind you, but I enjoyed playing and learning.
What was the best part of playing the bagpipes?
I’ll quote Conan himself: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women.”
When he said this, I’ll bet you didn’t know he was talking about the benefits of playing bagpipes.
But then a darkness crept over the land, and my bagpipes were set aside due to the realities of making a living.
Eons passed. The history of my bagpipe playing became legend, then myth. And soon, my bagpipes passed out of all knowledge.
However, after enlisting the help of a few dwarves to look in dark places, I believe I found them, my bagpipes, my precious bagpipes.
The dwarves passed this container on to me, thinking it contained nothing of value. But what do they know!
I believe my bagpipes are herein:
Soon, I’ll open this container and assess the contents, and hopefully begin the rehabilitation of my bagpipes. And, I’ll also begin resuscitating my bagpipe-playing abilities.
It won’t be easy. John Lennon once said, “It’ll be just like starting over,” and I think he might have been talking about re-learning the bagpipes.
I know I won’t be making music right away—there’ll be much work to get my lungs and fingers back to where they were, when I was just a newbie player.
As the saying goes: One doesn’t just walk into Mordor.
Ever the optimist, I say: It might be a slow march, but you can just walk into Mordor, if you are playing bagpipes.
So, stay tuned—you’ll probably be able to hear me practicing from where you sit right now.
And soon a great noise will be heard across the land:
