2-3-4 Challenge Book Discussions #1 discussion

Clarence Pritchard was obsessed about year 1900 being the true turn of the century. Why do you think he was so rabid about it? Were there any similarities between their year 1900 celebrations and ours in 2000?

Some people are so sure of something that they become really angry when public opinion goes the other way. He didn't seem to be a very well man either. The main similarity with ours was that it seems to bring out the crazies!

It was such irrational behavior that I thought his murder tied into it in some way (some business date tied to the turn of the century). I think his frustration with the gambling debt being tied to his business sent him over the edge.

I couldn't understand why he was so upset about this issue. I started wondering if someone had put something in his milk to cause irrational behavior.

It was really crazy talk.

I remember all the kerfuffle about when the 21st century began. It was not a big deal to me!

I worked for the 5th largest bank at the time and preparing for Y2K as we called it was all consuming for two years. I lived and breathed it professionally. As to it not being the true turn of the century wasn’t a big deal.

I kept expecting his strange behaviour to be somehow tied to the murder too!

I remember we celebrated the turn of the century (and the millennium) in 2000 and I never realized there could be any confusion about the date. Then again I was still a child then so it's very possible I just completely missed it. Or maybe they had made such a big fuss about the Millennium bug that people associated the new millennium with the year 2000.