Sitting at my desk in school, I was given an assignment on Jupiter. I remember it because I was in fourth grade and broke out in a cold sweat when it was assigned to me. The library was across town, and I didn’t know how to get there. We were still receiving our monthly encyclopedias at home, but I didn’t know if we received the letter J yet.
You see, at the time, I lived with my father, who was always moving from place to place. As a miner, that is what you did. He used to say you get done digging a hole, you find another hole to dig. That is how it went for me as a kid – winters with Dad, going to school wherever he was, and summers with Mom in Reno – at least until I was 12. But that is beside the point.
The point is the encyclopedia. My dad and stepmom bought them from a door-to-door salesman, and we were getting two volumes every month, starting with the letter A and working right through Z.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY JOHN CASH FILIPPE IN THE 2024 WINTER EDITION OF GAMING & LEISURE MAGAZINE.