He’s Got Whole World Book Set in His Hands

Like some fortunate people, I was lucky enough to set aside a few bucks to buy myself a Christmas present this year. And I thought I knew exactly what I wanted.

I had been dreaming--literally, for the past few months--about a set of encyclopedias my mother owned when I was a kid. They were the World Book Encyclopedia, and they were bound in red leatheresque material, had blue trim and were heavy. In the dream, I saw myself as a child--bucktoothed, crew-cut, idiotic--studying the same pages I had pondered all those years ago: the really cool kingsnake wrapped around a pine cone; the “Comparative Speeds of Animals” graphic; the “Hairdressing Today and Through the Ages” page; the spooky etching of Aaron Burr blowing Alexander Hamilton into eternity. (Strict Freudians may want to stop reading right here to interpret these selective images, though I agree with author Jim Harrison who remarked recently that “we are all familiar with the banality of the subconscious.”)

My immediate reaction to this heightened sensitivity to the World Book was one of indignation. Why did I, an allegedly full-blown adult, need a set of such rudimentary books? Why not evolve toward the forbidding Britannica, the very gold standard of collected knowledge?

With this kind of “upgrading” in mind a few months ago, I had a long conversation with a Britannica saleswoman at the Laguna Hills Mall, and later actually invited a salesman to my home to show me his wares. Yes, I was impressed by the Britannica--who wouldn’t be?--but the megathousand-dollar price tag and the crummy looking oak stand were a turn-off. Besides that, I confess to feeling nothing approaching a sense of fun as I held one of these near-sacred tomes in my hands and looked through it.

Where were the pictures of the chimpanzees riding a trike, the weird pen-and-ink drawings of all the First Ladies, the exciting graphic that answers the question “How Big Is an Atom?”?

The salesman made me an offer I couldn’t refuse, but I refused it anyway, long a believer that stubbornness is the next best thing to conviction.

The World Book--specifically, Mom’s red ones--continued to haunt me. Nobody offered any for sale in the papers, though I barely looked. Calls to book dealers proved fruitless because I didn’t make any. Did I seriously desire these volumes, or was this a flight of fancy that would eventually crash and burn?

I have long suspected that the wanting is better than the having, generally speaking. Certainly, the memory of these wonderful books was far better than actually owning a set of the outdated dinosaurs. Where would I put them? As it was, I already needed to pole vault over the mess in my study simply to get to the word processor. Like allowing the memory of a sweet dream to fade into the afternoon, I let my desire for the World Book of my mother’s days drift into the general madness of the season.

Then, one afternoon, on one of my many visits to the Laguna Beach Art and Antique Market, I remarked to the ever-helpful Shawn that I was looking for a set of used encyclopedias.

“What kind?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five clams, max.”

“No way. I’ll try.”

Two days later she called to say that she’d found a set of encyclopedias for $25. They were complete and in good shape. I said I’d take a look at them.

A couple of days later I went down to check them out, opened the box and beheld the most beautiful set of red, leatheresque and heavy World Book encyclopedias I had seen in 30 years. My hands trembled. My face flushed. My heart jumped up into my teeth. I ran my fingers over the little blue world embossed on the cover of volume one. They were published in 1957, the same as Mom’s.

“What do you think?” Shawn asked.

“I’ll take them!”

I hastily wrote out the check, then hefted the box and made for my truck. Twenty steps from the door, I realized the box weighed about six tons, and I’d never make it two blocks up Ocean Avenue.

I retreated into the shop, to the amusement of Karen, Belinda and Marin, and begged them to provide security for my purchase while I brought the truck back. Could I trust these people?

I could, and I did, and a few minutes later I was careening home with the books. The box slid back and forth in the truck bed, slamming around like a crash test-dummy with each curve of Laguna Canyon Road. I had to use four-wheel drive to get them up the hill. Finally, grasping the box with all my might, I ran straight through the living room, down the hall and lowered my shoulders like a halfback, crashing into the chaos of my study, box before me, more precious than any football I’d carried in high school.

The box and I lay splayed in the middle of the room. I was breathing hard. I kicked the door shut with my foot and removed Volume One from the box. Volumes two, three and four I arranged as a pillow (a poor one) behind my head. I browsed the basic text. I lost myself in the clear, semi-retarded graphics (not bad for ‘57, actually).

I drifted upward on the wings of such sentences as “Some aardvarks have tongues a foot long”; “The adding machine is an apparatus which is used to add numbers”; “More than 4,000 different sizes, shapes, and kinds of raw materials go into making a modern airplane.”

The article on Alexander the Great, on which I had based my seventh-grade report of the same name, still retained all the understated drama I had remembered: “Even as a boy Alexander was fearless and strong. He tamed the beautiful and spirited Bucephalus, a horse that no one else dared to touch or ride.” Of course, World Book provides a wonderful picture of Alexander, accepting the surrender of a rather bewildered looking Prince Porus of India while Bucephalus, in the background, appears to be snickering at some private joke.

With all the recent rain, the dark and chilly days, I have found no activity more pleasurable than lying on the couch and reading my new encyclopedias. They bring back a million memories, offer a trillion new facts.

They are neatly stacked beside the couch, in order, and I’m familiar enough with their positions by now that I can reach directly to volume eight, “H,” just for instance, without having to sit up and look for it. Here, I might read, beneath the picture of a brooding, white-bearded man: “Ernest Hemingway, American writer of virile novels.” I might study the stunning photographs of hippopotamuses on page 3,327. I might think about Mom and how good it was to be her kid. Prone upon my couch, I am truly a man of the world.