A memory popped up

While reading Chapter 5 of Trevor Noah's Born a Crime, I was brought up short by his memory of getting a set of encyclopedias.

"My mom ... bought a set of encyclopedias, too.  It was fifteen years old and way out of date, but I would sit and pore through those.  My books were my prized possessions.  I had a bookshelf where I put them, and I was so proud of it" (p. 67).

A memory popped into my head, and I stopped reading.  I was back in my own childhood.  We lived in barracks that had been converted to apartments for military people returning from World War Two, when there was not enough housing available for them and the boom of babies that ensued.  My dad had been drafted into the Army in late 1944, even though he had two children and another on the way.  Those barracks weren't built as solidly as most houses, and when it rained really hard, water would drip from the ceiling.  Our apartment was on the second floor, so I guess it was a leaky roof because rain was getting in somewhere.  Anyway, when it rained, we'd run to cover our beds or anything we didn't want to get wet.

One year, our mother bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias.  Maybe a traveling salesman had knocked on the door, and she began to make monthly payments on those green and white volumes.  I was like Trevor about those books.  They were special, I learned things from them, and I wanted to know all those things.  After we acquired those special books, when my brothers and sister would run to cover their beds, I invariably ran to protect the encyclopedias.  If I had to sleep on a damp bed, so be it.  But I didn't want those special books to be ruined.  So I ran to the bookshelves.  I kept those books safe, and — after I grew up, married, and moved away — the family still had them.

While looking for an online illustration for this post, I found a fun article about "People of the Book, yes.  But which one?"  Was it Encyclopedia Britannica?  or World Book?  or Compton's?  In pre-internet days, which encyclopedia was in your house?  We were a World Book family.

Word of the Day

en·sue / inˈso͞o, enˈso͞o / verb / ensued is the past participle = happened or occured afterward or as a result.  Example:  "After the war, a boom of babies ensued.  We call them the Baby Boomers."