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When I was in fourth grade, I longed to know what was happening in the world beyond the S.H. Kress’s store on Broadway Street and the pulp mill across the Wishkah bridge in Aberdeen.
At Robert Gray Elementary School, 11:00 on Wednesday morning was library time. It was the finest half hour of the week. For 28 short minutes, I could be alone with books. That big old library, with its creaking birch floors and the smell of old books mixed with the aroma of pencil shavings, was my refuge.
I was never sick on Wednesdays. If a cold was coming on, I held it in.
But one day, I forgot my library books at home and wasn’t allowed to choose new ones. I was crushed.
I sat, all sad-eyed, watching Georgia Bushnell and Annie Bogle as they whispered, thumbing through the pages of the latest Nancy Drew book.
Mrs. Donner, the school librarian, pointed me in the direction of my only option, the set of Encyclopedia Britannicas on the far shelf. It was supposed to be my punishment.
But after I discovered those books, with their strange and wonderful facts, those Wednesdays in the library, with the rain pelting against the windows, were never the same.
There was Volume 8-dash-H, with the country of Hungary and its red, white and green flag that reminded me of Christmas. And Volume 13-dash-M with exotic sounding places like MO-ROC-CO and MIN-NE-A-PO-LIS.
I wondered if I would ever need to read made-up stories again, with all the true stuff about the world I had yet to discover. And it was all in these 24 books.
Man, I wanted a set of my own.
The summer of the encyclopedia man
Late one August afternoon, when I was nine, the encyclopedia man, short, balding and dressed in a gray flannel suit, showed up on our doorstep and for one brief and shining moment, I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.
Mama, who was starting to shell the peas for supper, waved him into the house. He could have ten minutes of her time, she said, no more.
I prayed that the encyclopedia man was a sharpshooter of a salesman, picking off unsuspecting mothers before they knew what hit them.
When Mama said, “I don’t have all day,” I knew it was not a good sign.
They sat down on the davenport and Mama crossed her legs, swinging one of her high-heeled feet back and forth. This was how Mama got if you didn’t get right to the point.
“Well, I’ll get on with it, then,” the encyclopedia man said.
He pulled his suitcase out and opened it up to show a perfect, gleaming set of Encyclopedia Britannicas, just like the ones in the school library.
He turned one page of his sales book at a time as he told the story of the Encyclopedia Britannica, pausing for effect at each new picture. He talked about how kids got better report card grades if they had their own encyclopedias. How they always knew the right answer in class. How they studied longer and were more prepared for college.
But Mama cut right to the chase. “All right now. How much would you be charging?”
The encyclopedia man started talking faster as sweat beads started forming on his brow. “I’m almost finished,” he said.
“How much?” Mama narrowed her eyes.
And so it continued, back and forth. Mama asking her questions again and the encyclopedia man evading them with the skill of Sheriff Mat Dillon dodging bullets in a barroom scene on Gunsmoke. Now my head was popping back and forth between them like a badminton birdie.
“I can get you on the monthly plan for just $9.99. That’s my best offer,” the encyclopedia man finally said.
What do you think we are, filthy rich, Mama said, shooing at the man with her hand, like he was a bothersome fly.
And then, just like that, it was over and Mama and I were watching out the front room window as the encyclopedia man’s station wagon peeled out, the gravel on the driveway spitting.
He was gone, taking my dreams with him, all wrapped up in his battered case.
Speed for truth: what we gave up for social
When we were fourth graders, we used the encyclopedia to write our social studies reports. We knew that what was printed in those books was the pure and unadulterated truth. We never questioned it.
We didn’t have any reason to.
Our teacher never had to say once, ” Oh that’s just a silly rumor going around. President Kennedy isn’t really our president. You shouldn’t believe something just because it was printed in the encyclopedia.”
We believed. We trusted.
We knew.
But now we have social media. Information gets relayed at lightning speed. We know stuff right as it is happening. And it’s all good. Or is it?
Stuff I saw on Facebook last week
A cartoon is making its way around Facebook this week: a photo of Abraham Lincoln with the quote:
I love this. It says everything about the ability of social media to feed us false information that, like a bad virus, gets spewed out to hundreds more when we share it.
Aside from all the politically motivated half-truths and lies—and I don’t want to go there—just this past week on Facebook I saw:
• photos of a fatal car crash with the caption that kids were texting (not true: it was an elderly driver)
• “I’m cleaning up my friends list and will delete you unless you tell me you want to remain my Facebook friend.” (hoax spreading like wildfire right now)
• “Facebook will donate $1 to help a baby with a large growth on her face every time the baby’s photograph is liked on Facebook” (another hoax, this one vile and cruel; unbelieved by most, but not all)
• “Tom Hanks has died.” (seems that his death had been ‘highly exaggerated’)
And, in the downright dangerous department:
• “Because of the drought, the federal government will pay your electric bill this month; just provide your social security number and bank routing numbers.” (identity theft scam—several hundred people in the Midwest and the Atlantic states fell for it).
• “Tell us your ‘royal name.’ Combine your grandparent’s first name, your childhood pet and your street name and add XIV to the end. Share it with us!” (I can’t believe how many of my smart friends were playing this game online, releasing sensitive, password-type information for all the world to see.)
Worst of all, Facebook has made it too easy for us to like and share a blatantly untrue—and potentially damaging— piece of ‘news.’
Yeah, maybe it takes a minute or two to google to verify a fact. But how many of us do that? Not many, I suspect.
Why wouldn’t we believe what a trusted friend tells us, right?
So what about you?
How do you sort the lies from the truth on social media?
Do you ever wonder when you click “Share,” if what you are passing on is really true?
Do you think it’s getting harder to tell?
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Personal accountability is what comes to mind. The need to take the time to determine if what we read is accurate, truthful and reliable is at an all time low.Ok, I don’t know if it is at an all time low but I know people don’t read things as carefully as they should or think about what they are reading. Many of the people who are being fooled are intelligent but they have turned off their minds and it is quite troubling.
TheJackB I know. It drives me crazy on Facebook when people just read the headline of something being shared and leave a comment, not even knowing what the post or update was even about. Or they read the first sentence and obviously didn’t take the time to click though. Because they could be agreeing with something that might be quite the opposite of how they feel. And then they share, passing it on to others, which makes it even more confusing.
Wow, Judy. I’m sending my kids to this post! And reading more carefully…
deblund Thanks for reading, Deb. Good to see you again. : )
I love the Lincoln photo. I get a load of hoaxes by email but I use facebook/twitter purely for business so I am not in unguarded mode. When people think that social media are safe places to hang out they are like sheep to the slaughter.I like to hangout offline!
detoxin3steps Haha. Sheep to the slaughter. I read an interesting statistic today that 87% of Facebook users in a survey said they trust the status updates they see in their stream. That is very scary. Glad you are a critical thinker when it comes to social media. We need more of those.
JudyDunn Your 87% of FaceBook users statistic reminded me of a quote that 66% of statistics are made up on the fly…Including that one I may add!
detoxin3steps See how easy it is to screw us up? As a newspaper reporter, I had to do a teensy little thing called QUOTE YOUR SOURCE. Ha!
Hey, TheJackB . If your are reading the comments, I just have to say that livefyre is being weird today and it’s not showing all the comments. Yours shows in the back end, but not publicly. Trying to figure things out.
What? What’s not true? Don’t be pulling my leg now…..It’s way too easy to pass off lies or half-truths over the internet. Most I take w/ a grain of salt until it’s verified a little bit further down the line. Encyclopedia’s were a treasured item in the household; a many a book report was done from them. Holland was a cool place to learn about as well. Thanks for sharing.
bdorman264 You are one of the few skeptics on Facebook, I think. My friend John Haydon pulled me in with a joke he left on Facebook today—and I fell for it. He said something like, “87% of Facebook users trust statistics shared in updates.” :https://www.facebook.com/johnhaydon/posts/10151065351443426?comment_id=23235630¬if_t=likeDense person I can be at times, I bit and said something really stupid like, “That is scary.”Then I realized that he was playing with us. Clever guy, that John.My biggest disappointment as a child was that I never got a set of encyclopedias of my own. The mom of the family across the road, the Joneses (I swear to God, that was their name) bought a set. 6 rowdy boys and one girl. The boys tore out the pages and made paper airplanes out of them. I cried. Gives new meaning to “Keeping up with the Joneses.” LOL.
Hi Judy,Your account of enjoying the library and discovering the world that awaited you in encyclopedias brought back memories of my early fascination with reading, school, the library and books. Even though my mother could pinch pennies with the best of them, she was an easy mark for the encyclopedia man since she was fascinated with encyclopedias too. We became the proud owners of World Book Encyclopedia with its accompanying Childcraft series. Throughout my childhood our family and some neighbors all enjoyed consulting, researching and sometimes just browsing, as long as we were careful to not dirty the white leatherette cover or bend any pages.Even though we trusted and just knew that everything in the encyclopedia was true, we now know that the information was selective and sometimes skewed. But for its time, it was a valued and tremendous resource. Fast forward to social media. Discerning truth from scam has become more and more difficult as hackers and scammers have become more skilled and sophisticated. Thus, we must engage in critical thinking, always wearing our BS and too-good-to-be-true detectors. Whenever email or our so-called social media friends ask for sensitive information, it’s just a good rule of thumb to ignore and delete. I also notify my email friends so they can be aware that their accounts have been compromised. Banks and such have departments where you can report suspicious email that pretends to come from them.Since I use social media mainly for business, it’s easy to ignore all the requests to download the countless apps, on Facebook in particular, that would enable me to play the games or send greetings. In spite of its problems, I still value the power of social media for its reach and power. Using it responsibly and avoiding the snares of those who don’t is the key.
Flora M Brown You bring up a good point here. The information HAD to be selective if it was going to fit into 24 books. And yes, even back then, I am sure that some of the slants must have been biased (the Cold War and Nikita Kruschev, for example). But probably not to the point of purposely misleading folks or telling outright lies. So you were the proud owner of World Books, huh? And you even shared? Cool. : )Yeah, it pains me that “critical thinking” is looked at with skeptism these days (in some political realms, at least) and schools are dropping it from their curricula. It is needed now more than ever! When I taught gifted students years ago, it was a major strand. (Never understood why it wasn’t taught to all kids.) I take what I see on Facebook with the proverbial grain of salt, but many people just read the headline and think that they know enough to comment and/or pass the story on. Aack!Thanks for the thoughtful comment, Flora, and hope your summer is going well.
Oh, I loved, loved my elementary school library. Once, they thought I had lost a book and I was crushed. (They later found it). I don’t remember half my childhood, but I could draw that library from memory. And I loved the encyclopedias (later, in grad school, it was the OED — all those word secrets!!). I tend to be fairly focused in social media (except on Pinterest, where I wander). I mostly spend my time on blogs, a little on FB and then Twitter. If there’s something that’s going around that seems fishy, I check it out on snopes.com. Great post — lots to think about.
flowerpotsun The fun part of writing my memoir is accessing the far reaches of my mind and pulling out those memories. Like you, I can still see that library, hear the creaking floor, smell the books and sharply shaved pencils. So what is OED? Snopes.com is a great resource. I just discovered it when I was researching for this post. Thanks for reading and for sharing your own memories. : )
Don’t believe anything you read? I don’t know, that’s a real tough one. How do you believe anything from any type of media outlet these days? It’s too hard to know, for sure. Yes, I am calling FB media.That Facebook stuff is scary. For sure. Here’s one thing that is true. Lies will always fill our world. Human nature will never allow us to be fully truthful all the time. Agendas, insecurities, greed. I could go on but I do want to believe there is good in the world and there is but when something like Kony2012 is dragged through the mud it leaves us all in a position where we have no idea what is real and honest anymore. Sorry to be heavy here. In Neil Young’s immortal words “I was thinking about what a friend had said and I was hoping it was a lie.”
rdopping Hello, my friend. Your point is well taken. Even the “news,” at least some media outlets, are more opinion now. Whatever happened to getting the hard facts and making up one’s own mind based on them? Oh yeah. That would be too much work because it would actually require us to practice critical thinking. I love that Neil Young line. Hadn’t heard it before.I think that we (at least in the U.S.) have never been in greater danger in terms of people being manipulated and controlled with half-truths and outright lies. Thanks for bringing the greater philosophical discussion to the table. Oh, and did I miss that second post that was coming from the cool “mind map”/visual post you did recently on customer service at coffee shops? Might I still find it?
Hey Judy. Thanks for asking about the follow up blog post. It is there. I am on my smartphone so providing a link is tough. I hope you can get back to my house. Just look down the main page and you will find it. Cheers.
Judy, back on the laptop. Here’s the link http://theviewfromhere.ca/2012/07/how-can-big-vs-boutique-and-the-art-of-service-affect-your-choice-in-coffee/ and thanks again for asking. I would appreciate your opinion on the piece for sure.Re: philosophical. I do love to debate things from a more ethereal or intangible perspective. Not always the best for resolution but interesting to look at things differently or from a different perspective. Take a listen to “After the Goldrush” by Neil Young. Great, great song and somehow fitting to this discussion.
rdopping Cool. Will find a few moments here soon to check it out.
Fascinating discussion!
Susan Bressler Susan! Great to see you here. Hope your summer is turning into a nice one. Miss you guys. : )
My personal policy is to forward/re-post something ONLY if (1) I already know (based on my own education) that it is true or (2) I have fact-checked it at a site like snopes.com or (*GASP*) in an actual book in my possession. If I don’t know for certain or if I don’t have time to fact-check, I don’t re-post. It flabbergasts me every time I see people forwarding things that I know are bogus and I know they haven’t taken the time to make sure the information they’re sharing is true. These are the same people who wouldn’t dream of lying in “real” life. And yet, if anyone tries to point out to them their online error, they get huffy…or downright furious!Humans are funny sometimes. ; )
P.S. My dad *was* the encyclopedia man! I think it was before I was born. He tried selling Encyclopedia Britannica…and never sold a single volume because he couldn’t convince himself that the middle-aged and elderly folks he was soliciting actually needed a set of encyclopedias. I bet if he’d been to your house, he could’ve believed in his product on your behalf! ; )
courtcan Ha! It reminds me of my husband’s story. He was selling vacuum cleaners when he was very young (or trying to) and he would visit homes where clearly the mother with six kids living in poverty couldn’t afford it. He would try to make her feel better and tell her that he understood why she couldn’t afford it. Empathy is good, but he got fired after the first day. : )
JudyDunn Aww. That is completely adorable. : )
courtcan Hey, Courtney. A great set of guidelines there. Wish everyone followed them. We are just running at breakneck speed these days, aren’t we?
JudyDunn *sigh* Yes. We have a lot to learn from societies that still remember how to slow down and breathe.