I Remember Magazines

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Magazines are a lot more interesting when you aren’t paying for them. Even though those magazines are ones I would never glance at elsewhere,  I always find information I’ll digest for the rest of my life when I sit in the doctor’s waiting room browsing their supply of reading material.  Yesterday I hit the public library (one of my favorite errand destinations) and grabbed half a dozen magazines on the free table as I left.  I came home with AARP, People, Time, Oprah, Consumer Reports, and Reminisce.

I started with Consumer Reports even though I’ll probably never have occasion to buy a major appliance, a car, or a toilet.  They also reviewed frozen pizzas and I knew I needed to study that article.

I used to take AARP but when they quit publishing the crossword puzzle, I got disgusted and cancelled my subscription.  Other folks must have complained because later I saw the puzzle was back. It’s funny the things you won’t tolerate when you get old.   I quit taking People Magazine because I cancelled cable TV and never recognized any of the ‘pretty folks’ that People thought I cared about. 

My friend, Linda, used to buy me a Reader’s Digest subscription every Christmas.  Since she passed away last December, that little book will cease to show up one of these days.  I always liked the Digest; even have a collector’s copy from the year I was born – 1943. Although I must admit, the jokes don’t make me laugh like they used to. I think my sense of humor has altered with age and what I think is funny now probably wouldn’t pass the Digest’s censors.

My dad always subscribed to magazines when I was a kid.  The mailman would bring us Life, Popular Mechanics, Field and Stream, Saturday Evening Post, Jack and Jill, American Girl, Look, and National Geographic. Any magazines I wanted as a teenager, however, had to be bought with my allowance . I got most of my stuff at Don’s Pharmacy.  I was partial to Hit Parader, Teen, Mad Magazine, Cracked, and True Story.  TV Guide was a regular supermarket purchase when I was raising my kids and it bounced around the living room all week long.  My youngest two routinely tore it to shreds as toddlers or chewed on it. It was a small magazine then, and perfect for little hands.  Of course, it’s evolved over the years and it looks nothing like it used to.  Only one of my kids buys it on a regular basis now, and she studies it religiously every week. She knows how much I love old magazines and she gifted me a 1955 issue of TV Guide one year for my birthday.  (pictured)

In my box of saved treasures, I have old issues of some of these favorites, along with a stack of comic books. I sure hope my kids don’t put them all in the Goodwill pile.  A yard sale would be okay, I guess. Anybody with a good eye would probably recognize the value of their find.  I seem to spend way too much time worrying about where my stuff is going to end up when I’m gone. I need to get over that.