Today is my 37th birthday, an event I’ve been anticipating with about the same degree of enthusiasm I usually reserve for defrosting the fridge. Yes, I realize that I just dated myself terribly, since I don’t know anyone who’s actually needed to defrost their fridge in years, but I’m feeling pretty dated today anyhow, so what the hell. (Incidentally, I apologize to any youngsters out there in the InterTubes that don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. Not to worry, it’s just grown-up stuff.)
I don’t actually hate my birthdays the way some people of, ahem, advancing years do, but they are difficult for me. I don’t want to get all maudlin on you — I figure last night’s entry probably cornered that particular market for this week — but I will say that birthdays always tend to make me think of the things I thought I would’ve done by this point of my life and still have not done. They stir up a lot of restlessness and make me wonder about the choices I’ve made with my life; not surprisingly, this all tends to bring on an attack of Ye Olde Melancholie.
Fortunately, the birthday this year coincides with an interesting historical anniversary, and thinking about this has distracted me from falling into my usual “I’m a year older and what have I got to show for it” funk. It seems that 90 years ago today, the world’s first combat tanks rolled across a battlefield in the World War I Battle of the Somme. A detailed article on the subject explains why they’re called “tanks” (something I’ve always wondered — their British inventors code-named them “mobile water tanks” to throw off German intelligence) and notes that of the 49 tanks that ventured into action on that first day, only two actually made it to the German lines (most of them broke down).
Why did this little factoid catch my fancy? I have no idea… but it beats thinking about the novels I haven’t written and the travel destinations I haven’t visited.
J.R.R. Tolkien encountered these very tanks at the Battle of the Somme. There are several references to metal-clad, fire-spouting “dragons” or “engines” in Tolkien’s work (always on the bad guy’s side).
I imagine that to the average rural-bred infantry soldier of the day, few of whom would’ve been all that familiar with even automobiles, let alone any other big machines, those early tanks must’ve been absolutely terrifying and monstrous. Huddled in a trench with one of those things rolling over the top of you, it probably seemed like the very gates of hell had just opened.
Of course, having a modern-day tank bearing down on you would be pretty frightening, too, familiarity with machines aside…