When I was growing up, I was fortunate that we did have an Encyclopedia in the house. My grandfather was a regional sales manager for Fields Enterprises, and sold World Book Encyclopedias. So, we had a full set.

It had all sorts of wonderful things inside, and I remember countless times asking my parents questions after questions and they'd get exasperated with me and tell me to go look it up myself. Six hours later, I would have missed dinner and it would be way past my bed time -- and I would have no concept of how much time had passed.

By sixth grade, I was reading at the college level, and my school had no idea what to do with me.

By the time I got to college and had a job shelving books in the main library on campus, I found out about Encyclopedia Britannica, which was clearly at least twice as big as World Book, and I found out also much more authoritative.

I owe my entire career, and pretty much everything I am to the encyclopedias we had when I was a kid, and my grandfather who made sure we had a set.