Growing up, if I asked my Dad a question about something, inevitably his response would be "Look it up." He believed that it would be more meaningful to me if I looked up the information, rather than simply getting the answer from him. Despite my inward protestations, a rewarding habit developed that has lasted a lifetime.
The fact that we had access to both the Encyclopedia Britannica and The World Book Encyclopedia right in our house meant I really couldn't argue that it would take too much effort.
And those weren't the only sources of information under our roof. There were floor to ceiling shelves in my parents' bedroom, and a virtual library in the basement, stacked with subjects ranging from the study of birds, the complete set of Shakespeare's Comedies and Tragedies, to the Merck Manual (the world's best selling medical textbook). No matter how obscure a topic I would come up with, my Dad could produce a book on the subject and tell me to "look it up in the Index."
Of course these days, looking it up is a simple as typing in a question on the computer and hitting "enter." Seconds later, you have dozens if not hundreds of sites offering detailed information.
My Dad would have celebrated his 103rd birthday yesterday. Were he alive today, I suspect that despite his true love of actually holding a book in his hand, he would have been thrilled by the access to such a vast amount of knowledge via the computer, and would have spent the bulk of his day "surfing the net!"
No comments:
Post a Comment