Orville V. Webster

Quite useless at this remove—thirty six years later. It is amazing how the internet just made a work like this absolutely obsolete. A list of major corporations, information bureaus, tourist centers, government departments, etc., along with their addresses and phone numbers. Probably quite cool for a reporter in 1988, or a person trying to navigate the federal bureaucracy for documents or benefits. Why is it in my collection? Around that time, let's say 1989, my father inexplicably gave me a copy. I thought it was cool and called some 1-800 numbers, and even wrote Lockheed about my idea for a laser-powered flying car. Lockheed sent me a kid's press pack with glossy photos of the SR-71 Blackbird and other jets. I have yet to develop my laser-powered flying car idea any further in the intervening three-and-a-half decades.... I lost my copy, as even by 1998 when I left home it was quite worthless. But, I remembered it for some reason and snagged a $2 copy on Amazon. I have it for nostalgia purposes. It's like a time capsule of an era.… (mehr)