While mulling over the age(s) of majority, or coming of age, or "being allowed" to do various things, a couple of thoughts popped into my mind. Anyone who has read more than a handful of my posts here knows the danger signs this implies: while much of what I learned in geometry class back in 1970/71 has gone into the mulch of the mind, at least the terms sine and cosine are still present (not necessarily all of their implications); but
the one term that has stayed with a vengeance (if with faulty application) is:
tangents
AKA OT.
From personal experience, when I entered college in New Hampshire back in the fall of 1973, the drinking age (itself a somewhat more complex issue than I'm gong to present it here) was 18. It had been lowered parallel to the voting age. Voting age, though, is a federal matter. Drinking age is regulated by the states (and prohibition may be something that local governments are allowed to impose for their jurisdiction). Point is, after the drinking age had been lowered, there was a sharp spike upwards in automobile accidents with both deaths and injuries, and it was basically firmly linked to people being allowed to drink at 18 instead of 21. I remember, probably from articles in Time Magazine, the subscription to which my parents continued even after they had returned to Germany in early 1975, that there was a national organization, acronym MADD or Mothers Against Drunk Driving who were lobbying to have the drinking age raised again. The end of the matter was the 1984 National Minimum Drinking Age Act, a federal law. Now as I said above, drinking age falls in the jurisdiction of the states. So the US Congress, who passed the act, had to rely on "persuasion". Yeah, like that world-famous phrase by Marlon Brando AKA Vito Corleone in the first "Godfather" film "I made him an offer he couldn't refuse." To quote Wiki: "The act would punish any state that allowed persons under 21 years to purchase and publicly possess alcoholic beverages by reducing its annual federal highway apportionment by 10 percent." Hit 'em where it
always hurts: in the wallet … I wonder what confirmed Libertarians have to say about that … oops, that's a different thread!
For any interested in the Wiki article, here's the link. For the US, scroll down to "Americas" or click on the content link of that name.
en.wikipedia.org
To return to legal drinking age vs. coming of age in
Middle-earth: as we all know (or should),
Hobbits come of age at 33. They seem to be rather more relaxed about drinking alcoholic beverages, especially beer. I mean,
Pippin, five years shy of
Hobbit majority in 3018 TA, has no problem getting a pint (or is the pint a PJ invention?) at
the Prancing Pony. With one of the major enjoyments of Hobbit life being eating and drinking, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised. Pippin also lamented the detour in chapter IV "A short cut to mushrooms" in Book One of "Fellowship", as it would bypass the village of Stock and its
inn "
The Golden Perch": "The best beer in the Eastfarthing, or it used to be:
it is a long time since I tasted it." (!!!) Of course, traffic accidents were of an entirely different quality back in the end of
the Third Age, especially in
the Shire. Any
ponies that could be comfortably ridden by Hobbits would have been seriously shorter than those Bandobras "
Bullroarer" Took (or at the end of LoTR
Merry and Pippin) would have been able to ride, leading to a very low fall height. Coupled with the innate toughness of Hobbits, this would probably have meant bruises at the most (those ponies would also probably have had normal traveling speeds seriously below those of the Kentucky Derby etc.). And I certainly can't imagine any pony running head-on into a tree or other immovable impediments (I wouldn't want to bet on low branches if a rider annoyed them …)
Or wagons used for agriculture. But we're definitely not talking about vehicles like the chariots in the film "Ben Hur" or others, or even the multi-horse stage coaches so beloved of Western films. The draft
horses used for such transport tended to have a very tranquil temperament, and by their stature alone were not natural gallopers. If the beasts of burden were oxen, things slow down even more (and by the way, male horses used for heavy transport tended to be geldings, if memory serves …)
