The World in a Book

A couple of months ago when I was out of town, Encyclopedia Britannica announced that it was ceasing publication of their print edition after 244 years. I couldn’t help but think back to when we got our first encyclopedia at home. They were a 1961, or so edition of the World Book Encyclopedia. I was in heaven.

I remember saying something at school about looking things up in the World Book. One of my more affluent friends kind of sneered that he had the Encyclopedia Britannica. I remember thinking that it couldn’t possibly be any better than the World Book. Several years later, I was in the library and looked through a volume of the Britannica thinking, “I am glad I had my old trusty World Books instead of this. I could have never written all those reports at Dodge Elementary if I had to use this as a reference.” It may have been more scholarly that my trusty World Book, but at least I understood what I read in mine. Besides, Britannica was LEATHER BOUND. No one in my house would have let me touch a leather bound book of any kind until I was old enough to drive.

One of my best friends growing up had a set of grocery store encyclopedia (I don’t remember the name.) His Mom was buying them one volume at a time when she had the money and there was a featured volume available that they didn’t have. I assume that this is why he knew so little about topics, beginning with the letters J-K, N-O, and V-Z. Apparently, these volumes were never featured when there was extra cash in their household.

I really don’t remember the traveling salesman that sold the books to my mom. In fact, for all I know, we may have had a used set. I have no idea what that set cost my mother in the early 60’s. I am quite sure it was a lot of money to her, but he was willing to sacrifice so that her child could learn. They would be available to me at home, every day, all year long. It worked. From the day we first got them until I was grown, I remember going to the bookshelf to look up something and end up reading article after article. I do essentially the same thing today when I look up something on-line. It was my Google, Wikipedia, and CIA world fact book all rolled up and bound in cream and green fake leather with gold embossing on the cover.

I’m sure that the print encyclopedia business will soon be a thing of the past and all be gone shortly. Even though I have moved on and it has been years since I picked one up, I can’t help but be a little sad to see them go.

Late Nights and Books on Texas

I wrote this over ten years ago during the week of Mother’s Day. I was a sick man and wasn’t sleeping well at the time. Reading through it today, I feel the same way as I did then. I hope that you have a wonderful Mother’s Day. bd

Last night as I was reading a pretty good book as everyone else in the house slept, I got to thinking about where my reading habit really began. I am sure that it was the fault of, or credit to my first grade teacher, Ms. Peacock. Now I know that I’m getting older and my memory is not what it used to be, but I remember her as a woman in her mid to late eighties and weighing at least three hundred pounds. She wore her hair in a knot, drank grapefruit juice out of those little cans through a straw (that always had lipstick on it.) She put on that really red lipstick using the back of her granddaddy’s pocket watch as a mirror. I remember someone asking her once why she drank that stuff, was it really that good? And she said that it helped her keep her weight down. We couldn’t imagine how big she must have been before she discovered this miracle juice.

At any rate, Ms. Peacock wrote on my report card at the end of the school year that my reading skills were weak and that my mama might want to work with me on it over the summer. Although Ms. Peacock may have started it mama followed through with a vengeance. You would have thought that I had been diagnosed with a serious, if not fatal disorder the way mama attacked the “problem.”

The bookmobile came to Empire once a week, Tuesday afternoons, I think. My mother and I were there to drop off and pick up a load of books every time it came. I remember it looking like a big pink and white bread truck. Before the summer was over we were visiting other libraries too. I became an authority on the Hardy boys and the Bobbsey Twins that summer. I also caught up on Samson and those poor wandering Jews that desperately needed a map. (I already knew about Kim, Wendy and their rowdy dog Tyke.)

Our routine was to sit on the front porch swing and I would read out loud and mama would shell butterbeans, or whatever hand work was needed, and just listen. I would read a while and then I could go play a while, and then read again. When I finished the book, I would close it and mama would have me tell her the story. Sometimes she would ask me questions. I climbed my Chinaberry tree and played in the creek that summer, but I read a lot of books too!

That was forty-odd years ago. I hadn’t really thought a lot about any of it until last night, as I reading about Texas. When mama sat there beside me shelling butterbeans and helping me with the hard words, I thought that I wasn’t going anywhere that summer. I was wrong. The journey that I started that summer has taken me many places and I hope it won’t end for a while….

This Sunday after a nice lunch I’d like to sit on that front porch swing and read a pretty good book to my mama, close my eyes and tell her the story that I just read, just one more time.

And what are YOU doing this Sunday?