Before Wikipedia, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves and even MS Encarta, there used to be the consummate answer book, the mother of all references - the World Book Encyclopedia.
Maybe I was born with a book gene or in a former life was Johann Heinrich Zedler (who incidentally first published the encyclopedia between 1732 and 1754 in Leipzig, Germany).
But ever since I could walk and talk, I was an unconventional toddler who did not submit to Playskool toys or Lincoln logs, but rather, gravitated toward a uniform set of books on a custom rack that was just the right height to pull down and defile pages upon pages of pictures, illustrations laced with text that was still Greek to me. Since none of my family members really read the books, I took the liberty (as well as my blue-green crayon) of editing and proof-marking scores of pictures, portraits and sometimes text. The beauty of this set was the alphabetized system. Mind you, each letter did not necessarily warrant their own volume. So maybe A, C, G, M and S were the big volumes while E, I, Q, U, and XYZ were paired in order make the minimum size worthy of a hardcover. Bottom line...my objective was to make my mark from A-Z.
One day as I was going through Volume "F" I stumbled upon glossy, colorful pages. I was mesmerized by the multitude of geometric colors in different hues, shapes and icons. There were about 10-12 pages of these little rectangular grids that had names under each icon: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas....Wisconsin, and Wyoming. Another section had even more varieties: Afghanistan, Albania...Zambia and Zimbabwe. I was hooked. What became a hobby became a fixation and soon an obsession. I literally was a six-year old walking encyclopedia (Volume "F" of course). I could describe any country or state flag to any adult, whom I've stumped on many occasions. On outings, some kids brought their baseball cards, matchbox car, or etch-a-sketch to keep them occupied. You can guess what I lugged around (See photo).
In time, as I learned about each county's flag of origin, it prompted me to other volumes to seek further due diligence. It was simply curiosity. So perhaps Volume "U,V" did not require much work looking up Uganda and Venezuela. But when I researched Mongolia and Mozambique in Volume "M", I was possessed once again at another vice - Maps. (To be continued)
Back then, maybe times were too simple and innocent. We were not overloaded and bombarded with so many pieces of information in multiple media platforms. Once upon a time there was "time" where a kid like myself, could go outside or in a sofa fort and get lost in a book without any time constraint or obligations. I wonder what would have happened if a iPad somehow fell into the hands of a young boy in 1970? Would that knowledge be helpful or harmful?
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