Funk & Wagnall’s New Encyclopedia. Not World Book or Encyclopedia Britannica; we couldn’t afford those. We bought ours in the late 1970s or early 1980s with points, stamps, or some such thing from shopping at Winn Dixie. It took us two or three years to get the whole set. I was constantly afraid that they would stop the promotion before we got them all. Each time we had enough points to get a new volume, Daddy and I would sit and read it cover to cover. That was what passed for entertainment when I was growing up. Apparently, Daddy and I were really bored, so we started quizzing each other about information in each volume just to see if the other had really read it all the way through.
In addition to the Funk and Wagnalls collection, we acquired a world atlas at some point during my childhood. Ever since then I’ve been fascinated with maps. As a kid I would often trace the roads of the U.S., dreaming of road trips far away from Rabun County.
Now, what with the Internet and Wikipedia and all, hard cover print encyclopedias have gone the way of the wood console television. Our set of encyclopedias are still at Mama’s house in the specially built bookcase that Daddy made just to showcase our 1980s wealth of knowledge. I’m remodeling her house right now, and I’m trying to decide whether to pack them away. So far, I can’t bring myself to do it. A lot of work went into licking all those stamps. Maybe they’ll make a comeback one day. And I think we still have a console television somewhere. A black and white television at that. After all, we were the last family in America to get a color television, but that’s another story.