A Question of Values

This was first posted in October of 2004, about events that occurred around 1980.

When I was junior in high school a fire in the mountains above our house threatened to make us evacuate, and my mother sent me to my room to pack, just in case. She warned me that we couldn’t take everything. So I grabbed a brown paper grocery bag and went to my room and into it I placed that which I valued most—my Tolkien books. I had a boxed set of paperback copies of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (the ones with Tolkien’s own paintings on the front cover and Tolkien’s picture on the back); I might have added one or two others. I don’t remember for sure whether I included the Narnia books or not, but I don’t believe I did.

Then I placed the bag gently in the backseat of my mother’s car. That was it. I was done.

It hadn’t even occurred to me to pack clothing.