William D. Waltz
from The Word Wonder
I’m pretty sure it was Bugs Bunny who introduced me to the
Seven Wonders of the World. I was eight or nine when, one
Saturday morning, Bugs caravanned past the Great Pyramid of
Giza astride a ridiculously smug-looking camel. A year or two
later, I inherited a set of encyclopedias from some distant
relative and promptly dove in. It may or may not have been the
thin yellow pages or the stale smell of old glue, but there was
something alluring about those tomes. It was if they were sacred
vessels conveying all of the world’s ancient knowledge and
wisdom, and, in way, they were.
Although they were reference books, I didn’t actually refer to
them, i.e., look up particular things on specific pages, so much
as I explored them, taking my chances, spinning the Wheel of
Fortune, and opening a randomly selected volume to a
randomly selected page. The not knowing where I would land
and the subsequent discovery were part of my encyclopedic
pleasure. Sometimes I’d open to a page of little interest and
sometimes I’d find myself hunting wooly mammoths or a few
miles above Tintern Abbey, and of course, I came upon the
pyramids of Egypt. And, from there, I became acquainted with
the other six Wonders, all of which were captivating to one
degree or another, but I was left to ponder why only seven. Why
not Victoria Falls or the Taj Mahal? These books were overflowing
with wonders as was life itself. Why not a million wonders?