One activity that's just as common in the South and Tennessee as frying pans and hog lard, is the ritual known as the yard sale. Everyone has them and most people go to them in Tennessee. I have lived 34 years and had never had one, nor had I ever attended one, until this weekend. My wife and several of her coworkers decided to have a yard sale. I learned two things this weekend, 1) A yard sale is a thinly veiled attempt of wives to sell all their husband's things. (She tried to sell my whoopy cushion and rubber chicken, I've had since highschool) 2) Other wives come to buy the husband's things for their own husbands. But something struck me odd Friday night as all the ladies set up their wares. One lady brought a box full of books. Well, I'm a book freak, if it's a book I'll buy it. I looked in the box and found a whole set of Worldbook Encyclopedias. Not an old set either, these were from the 90's. I looked and the price was $5 for the whole set! I thought about it for a few moments and just couldn't stand for those books to be sold like that. Books, especially reference books hold a somewhat, almost Holy feel over me. I asked the lady why she was selling her encyclopedias. She told me she didn't need them any longer. Now what, pray tell, could convince her she had no longer a need for encyclopedias? Had she learned the secret of the universe and therefore had no more use for books of knowledge? No, she tells me, "I have them on CD-Rom now!" Have we, as a society come so far that we don't even want to open a book anymore? Would this lady prefer booting her computer to simply opening a book? I found myself feeling very sad over this box of books. Yes, I bought them! It was my first ever in my lifetime yardsale purchase. I don't really need another set of encyclopedias, but I'll find a local library that might make use of them here in Union County, Tennessee. So that maybe some people who aren't fortunate enough to have them on CD-Rom may use them. Although I wonder who the lucky one really is. Is it the one who reads the encyclopedia on CD or the one who opens a book and discovers the secrets of the universe under a tree in their backyard? I'll take the backyard, with a book, an RC and a Moon Pie! Just thought I'd share that with you all, for some reason it just got to me. Chip Manager TNChat