Photo by Phyllis Stokes
By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, noting the keeper’s inclination to dig things up that might better remain buried, reviews the long saga of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
As a symbol of knowing everything the Encyclopedia Britannica was “it”, in the keeper’s early adult years and when he scored a complete set at a garage sale he was suddenly transformed from a cloddish wayfarer to a potential genius. He remembers sitting in his den staring at the shelves full of Britannicas and wallowing in the vast store of knowledge that was at his very fingertips.
Time–decades passed with the advent of the tech world and with the keeper and the Britannicas becoming gradually less familiar with each other until there came the day when ending their association seemed the only thing to do.
The keeper at that time was building a big garden box for Phyllis and since there was no other disposition possibilities for the Britannicas it was decided to give them a decent burial at the bottom of Phyllis’s garden box where they would eventually contribute organic material if not answers to all possible garden questions.
The keeper and Phyllis have since moved to a different location and have no clear information about the disposition of the garden box and its buried contents.
Phyllis has adjusted to a tech life with mental agility that the keeper obviously lacks. He more or less sulks in a corner and mourns his buried Britannicas.
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