My Love-Hate Relationship to Magazines

I remember when I was a new mother back in the late 1960's, I was pretty much on my own during the day. My hubby was at work all day and my mother lived in another town. Where we lived was an old working class neighborhood. There were very few children and most residents were workers who were away during the day. Although it was in a city with several homes on each block, it seemed more like a ghost town to me. I would take my baby boy for a walk and rarely meet anyone I knew. During this lonely time was when I discovered how much company magazines could be.

I wasn't much of a television watcher during the day so while he was napping, I would check out Parents and Family Circle magazines from cover to cover. The articles were very helpful to a new mother who could use all the help she could get with raising a child and cooking new dishes for dinner. But my secret place was in the back of the magazine where several offers to send twenty-five cents and maybe a boxtop or label to receive a sample or something I just had to have. No matter what it was and often just the request was enough with no extra things to send and I was in seventh heaven. This became an obsession and the beginning of a long love affair with the mail service. Postage was cheap back then and the thought of email or having a home computer was science fiction. Each day when the mailman would deliver the mail, would fly down the stairs awaiting the delivery of whatever doodad I ordered. Sometimes I did not even remember ordering these things, but welcomed them nonetheless.

Looking back, I should have maintained a list of everything I sent for and crossed them off when received; as I am sure I never received everything I requested. Campbell Soup spoons with the cute kids on the handle, the Jolly Green Giant corn on the cob holders, a Pillsbury dough boy doll were among my favorites as well as various plastic gadgets. When my son was old enough to eat real cereals and not baby food we welcomed his new little sister and another world was opened to sending away for more stuff. Suddenly my mailbox was a treasure chest as more and more companies jumped on the bandwagon.

Now instead of just getting stuff, they were offering money. Send in two proof of purchase seals (a new innovation with coding to automatically scan the price right into the cash register so the cashier would not make a mistake putting in the price of your item) and we will send you a check for a dollar. I started keeping the boxes and proofs of purchase in a special place so I was ready for any offer that would come my way. I remember opening a new savings account just for the money I received for an entire year which funded our one week vacation at Williamsburg, Virginia. We went to Busch Gardens, Colonial Williamsburg, swan in the motel pool and ate like royalty. It would be so nice to relive the age of innocence before the price of a stamp was nearly a half dollar, when the mailbox was a source of joy.

Hello........................fast forward to 2009. Now I wish the mailperson would keep going without stopping at our house. Our bills are emailed to us or set up with the bank to pay each month. So we don't have to go into shock when the bill arrives; our information is available 24/7. We don't mean to be stingy but we are not interested in donating to every imaginable cause, no matter how heartwrenching. We already give to several that are dear to our hearts such as paralyzed veterans, almost anything related to helping our armed forces, both heart and lung associations, arthritis, sarcoidosis and a special group who take care of animals. We do not want "free" checks from our credit card carriers, and do not want books about every new health breakthrough that will fall flat. How many times have we been told to drink coffee, not to drink coffee, and now drink coffee again? We do not want to buy car insurance from a reptile and for crying out loud AARP, we cannot mail every demand to our senators and representatives to vote for or against every bill imaginable......do you know how expensive stamps are?

One of the best things I got from early on in my marriage was to use coupons. The magazines always contained manufacturers coupons and the supermarket issued their own coupons as well and you could use both to buy an item. Over the years, this is the one thing I will never stop doing and now with the internet, you can print them right from your printer. Nowadays on a fixed income, any way to save is fine with me. I don't mind asking for my senior citizen discount, in fact I am proud to do it.

As for those magazines, I still can't help myself. We get Sports Illustrated, Family Circle, Real Simple, Good Housekeeping, O Magazine, Arthritis Today, Diabetes Self-Management, Consumer Reports, Nutrition Action and Shop Smart. How many do you think get read each month? Depending on the weather and season of the year; maybe half. I feel bad that trees are losing their lives in vain so every once in a while I will take them to my daughter's house and we sit and read them together while we visit each other. Even my hubby will glance through them while we are there. Why then don't we read them at home? I guess we will never know. Maybe there is no special place to read except the bathroom. I have an office with my computer, a television with DVR, my recumbent bike and all my magazines. I should read but spend most of my time on the computer and watching the conservative news channel.

During my career I would sometimes lecture about time management and did practice what I preached. Now that I am retired from the rat race I find myself doing exactly what I dreamed of doing. Writing not reading! I am not disappointed, and I certainly hope the people who have time to read my articles are not disappointed either.

Published originally in HubPages.