Encyclopedia II

Couple of weeks ago, I wrote about encyclopedias and how outdated they seem today. I apologize for some confusion I wrote into that column. Striving for a tone of irony, I recounted how quickly (we thought) we could access information in the encyclopedias, cross-referencing and all, compared with the pre-encyclopedic days when we had to drive 10 miles to the nearest library.

I tangled some history there. When I was a kid, the nearest library, hence the nearest reference material, was in Harrisburg, Pa., and we – my parents, brother Fred, and I – lived in the country across the Susquehanna River. It was then that my Dad sprang for a set of Book of Knowledge for us, and also, I think, Encyclopedia Americana.

Wow. All the knowledge in the world on a shelf in our house, accessible 24/7 (an expression we never heard of).

When Dave and I started our family, our lives were kept busy by three little girls who also craved to know all there is to know in the world. There was a lot more to know by then. We lived closer to a library, which the girls saw as a veritable shrine to human intelligence, but not close enough for them to walk alone after dark.

That’s when we bought our World Book Encyclopedias, dated 1969, and relished the ceremony of opening those books, carefully bending the spines so the books lay flat, and lightly dating and initialing articles used in school reports.

It was a different world when those books were published, a time (apparently) without Alzheimer’s disease and Aids. Rap meant tapping on the door, and doctors, classical musicians and law enforcement personnel are all “he.” Nurses and teachers, of course, are “she.”

Naturally, one turns to the entry for Computer, since we think of computers as among the fastest-changing tools of the communication era in which we live. The grainy gray and white photos show programmers working on ceiling-high machines, the size of closets, and marveling that “modern” computers used vacuum tubes to control the electronic circuits of “first generation computers” and could perform thousands of calculations a second.

Second generation computers of the early 1960s could perform ten times those problems, and third generation computers were beginning to use miniature electronic circuits. “Sometimes,” the article concludes, the services of single computers will be shared by businessmen and scientists. Each will communicate directly with the computer by telephones or by means of a keyboard machine similar to a typewriter. The computer will handle many questions at the same time. It will give each questioner a spoken reply, a typed answer or information projected on a screen similar to that of a television set.” Woooo.

There is no entry for Personal Computer.
Personal name. (See Name, Personal)
Interstate Highway. (See Roads and Highways)
Dementia. (See Mental illness)
Soda water (See Soft drink)
Soviet Union/ (See Russia)
Internet. (Say what?)
E-mail. (Huh?)
Elizabeth II.

Ah, Her Highness. She gazes directly into the camera in a magnificent portrait taken on some really important occasion. She was born in 1926, 10 years before me. She became queen at 25, when her father died.

For all their salacious shenanigans, the English royal family has its moments, and I’ve always respected Her Majesty. Her position really has no special value today, but that’s like saying there’s not much point in a blue jay being several shades of blue when a sparrow is dull brown and just as successful in his position in the world.

I admire the queen’s dignity. And let’s face it, she’s hard to ignore, parading about with her amazing chapeaux. Someone must have a great time being the queen’s milliner. Is it true she never wears the same hat twice? How stunning the blending of colors, and the way her dress and hat complement each other.

And that pocketbook. What is in there? She doesn’t have a Doom’s Day button in there like the president is said to have nearby. As one jokester said a few years ago, she doesn’t carry car keys, she never needs money, she never has the sniffles, and she sure isn’t carrying pictures of her grandchildren. Enough of them already in the tabloids.

I think I fell for the old girl when, as a mere child, she had to wear all the paraphernalia of coronation and remember to lead off with her right foot and hold her head high and never, never pick at her fingernails, no matter how bored she was.

She looked so vulnerable. And when she promised, in that curiously high voice, that her “whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service,” could she have possibly thought she would live to be 81 and still carrying out that promise? A girl of 25 can’t imagine what it means to be 81.

Well, I guess we’ve had our fun with the World Books, and I’m glad we took this little excursion. I withdraw my claim that 1969 encyclopedias have no value.