I’ve been systematically going through all our books and entering them onto the book cataloging app that I put on my phone. I’m up to 956 books and still haven’t gone through the 5 bookcases down the basement.
One of the best parts of doing this is that I’m discovering all sorts of books that we have that I had either forgotten about or never knew we had in the first place. The first prize award for today’s entries has to go to a book by E. O. Harbin engagingly titled The Fun Encyclopedia, subtitled “A Comprehensive, All-purpose, Entertainment Plan-book for the Home, Club, School, Church and Playground.” Phew! That’s pretty impressive – why did I never consult this amazing resource when I was homeschooling our six children?
The first line of the preface reads, “This book is an attempt to provide in one volume a wide variety of ideas of interesting things to do in leisure.” There are 948 pages in this volume – just think what I could have done every time one of the kids came up to me during the summer complaining “I’m bored!” I could have replied with a page number at random – “Go do something from the Fun Encyclopedia, page 423!”
Sure enough, E.O. Harbin didn’t let me down. “Spot ball” or “Tennis Spot ball” would have been just the ticket. Oh, the opportunities lost! I just turned to another random page (318) and found a nature quiz. The first question is: Which runs faster, a greyhound or a whippet?
Do you know?
So, that’s all for today. If you give me a random page number the next time you’re bored (or even if you’re not), I’ll be glad to give you E.O. Harbin’s suggestion for having FUN.
I’ll probably delete this unless the greyhound finally beats the whippet in a race.
Lynniebeemuseoday 