It's amusing to browse through them and see how much the world has changed.
Posted on 10/27/2018 4:35:04 PM PDT by SamAdams76
It was around March of 1974, right around the time that Nixon and Watergate was in the news day after day after day. I was in the fifth grade and not much up to speed on Watergate and why Nixon was in such big trouble over it. I was more concerned about The Partridge Family, my favorite show at the time, going off the air. I wanted to be Danny and to be able to play tricks on Reuben Kincaid.
My mother used to go grocery shopping over at the Finast - also known as "The First National" - a now long defunct supermarket chain that used to operate in the Northeast.
One day she came home all excited, she was going to give me and my brother and sister "some learning". So we gathered around as she unloaded the groceries, the usual cans of Underwood deviled ham, the Wonder bread, the frozen Gorton's breaded fish sticks, the big can's of Hi-C and so forth. At the bottom of one of the brown paper sacks (there were no plastic bags in those days), underneath the endless boxes of Rice-A-Roni (that she made with just about every meal), she proudly pulled out a shrink-wrapped hardcover book.
It was volume one of the Funk & Wagnalls encyclopedia. Encompassing all the world's knowledge from Aa- Be. For the most part, we kids were underwhelmed but we tried not to show it because our mom was so excited and happy about it.
Apparently the supermarket was running a promotion where each week, a new volume would be available for $4.99 ($1.99 if with a purchase of groceries of $25 or more).
Funk & Wagnalls. Apparently a big name in the encyclopedia world. It didn't have quite the cachet of Brittanica but it might have been up there with World Book.
With a burst of energy, after the groceries were put away, my mom quickly cleared an old bookshelf that my father had crammed with paperbacks of mostly "The Executioner" series featuring Mack Bolan and other such books, putting them all in the same paper bags that just had our groceries. Then she proudly put Volume One of the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia (Aa-Be) in the upper left of the top shelf, informing us that in a few more months, that bookshelf would be FILLED with knowledge and that we would be able to use them to do research for our schoolwork instead of having to go to the library.
And so indeed the bookshelf did begin to fill up with a new volume each week. But during the summer (just as Nixon was resigning), we took a vacation and she missed a week of grocery shopping. So we ended up doing without Vol 12 (Pa-Re) for a while but eventually it showed up so she must have gotten the supermarket to special order it for her.
So that was how our family obtained our first set of proper encyclopedias. It was a big deal. I think we were the only ones in the neighborhood with a full set. And yes, we did use them from time to time for our schoolwork. Also, I would rummage through them at random from time to time, especially if my mom was around, as I wanted to show her that her investment was paying off.
The Britannica door-to-door sales people would come around from time to time but my Mom would shoo them away, proudly telling them we were "all set" with regard to encyclopedias. But she did over time get a vacuum cleaner, a set of knives and all kinds of Amway and Avon stuff from these door-to-door salespeople who were all over our neighborhood during those days. My father would often have fights with her over all these purchases. She found it hard to say no and as soon as a door-to-door man got through the doorway, I knew my father was going to be pissed later.
So in the 1980s, I got married and before my wife and I even had kids, we got suckered into the complete set of the Encylopedia Britannica. $1400, or twenty or so "easy payments" on the installment plan. Being a young couple, we went with the installment plan. And I tell you, those payments were anything but "easy". Then, without even asking permission, they kept sending us the annual updates for like another $50 a pop. It took endless letters and phone calls to get them to stop.
But it was a bit of a yuppie status symbol to have that beautifully bound set of Encyclopedia Britannica in our home. But our kids never touched them. By the time they got old enough to read, we got the the Microsoft Encarta CD-ROM, which they barely used and a few years after that, everything got on the internet and those CD-ROMs went into the trash. Couldn't even move them in a yard sale.
The Brittanica had a slightly better fate. When we were moving from our apartment to our first house, a neighbor took them off our hands for $75.
OMG. Graduated HS 1962. Relate to everything! Love ya, Sam.
The one big set of books I have always wanted - and will never have the money or shelf space for - is the Oxford English Dictionary. https://www.amazon.com/Oxford-English-Dictionary-Vols-1-20/dp/0198611862?crid=G5KMJKW5O0E8&keywords=oxford+english+dictionary+set&qid=1540685980&s=Books&sprefix=oxford+e%2Cstripbooks%2C216&sr=1-1&ref=sr_1_1
In the 1960s, my parents bought us a set of World Book encyclopedias from a traveling salesman on a monthly installment plan. My mother still had them when she died in 2012.
I have them in the back of a closet. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. My kids will have to throw them out when I die.
There is something about a single form of available knowledge that focuses the young mind enough to actually take advantage of it. When it is available everywhere (even in Left-edited form) one takes in none of it.
Takes me back..... My mother shopped at Finast as well. We had a set of encyclopedias from my grandmother who simply passed them on to us. She had bought them for her own children so they were a bit out of date but came in handy.
Thanks for your sweet memory.
I loved those little books.
Remember those magazine offers? "8 cassettes for a Penny!"
So like a fool, I taped the penny to the card and sent it in. Sure, I got my cassettes of Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin, etc. But then I started getting cassettes sent to me every month for about $20 (Columbia House's "regular price")! They would send you a letter with the "pick of the month" and unless you notified them by mail within something like three days, the tape came with the bill and good luck trying to send it back before the next bill came with the late charges.
So I became one of millions of no-income kids owing Columbia House big bucks for unwanted Billy Joel and Neil Diamond tapes. That's a full story I'll tell later.
My folks bought the World Book encyclopedia in 1960 when I was 9 and my sister was zero. The were sold door-to-door and I think the salesman might have been my elementary school principal, maybeas a summer job. Every teacher knew what the WB had to say about every topic assigned for reports however - no plagarizing! So I developed the ability to paraphrase, which was actually a good skill to have.
the left will destroy our history...
Haha, I scored my two-volume set for a penny, from The Conservative Book Club (they made you promise to buy more books). It came with magnifying glass.
After they gathered dust in my parents' bookcase for a couple of decades they were donated to Goodwill.
Thanks for the great story and memory...you write very well.
"Look that up in your Funk and Wagnall's." Lol
Still have a set of F/W (purchased in the 70’s. The days of the special purchase every week at your local food store has vanished with the times. During that time, an entire set of dishes (most now broken and gone), F/W (complete set), Woman’s Day Cooking hardback books (NOT the complete set) and ? serving set of silverware were purchased. Still have the F/W and Womans Day books, and still refer to them on occasion.
I have the books they would put to Fahrenheit 451. If I were to memorize one, it might be the OED : )
We’re obviously of similar age from the same neck of the woods. My mom helped me with getting started with fishing .. with tackle bought with S&H green stamps.
Yes. The free or nearly- free encyclopedias and China for dining and such were great promotions for the grocers. Just like the five cent ice cream cones were for the drug stores. And the green or blue chip or orange stamps were for gas stations. People FREQUENTLY chose to patronize those merchants just for the little “freebies”
Our family didn't have much money, so we used to joke that our home was furnished in "Early Blue Chip Stamps."
Oh, the memories. I sure miss those days.
Lucky you...I DID get taken to the library...but with no guidance for what to read..and I was a voracious reader
Thet Were Green,,,
Probably look like oatmeal now.
It's amusing to browse through them and see how much the world has changed.
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