Ballard Street by Jerry Van Amerongen for July 22, 2010

Hullo, Cleo pals….

We’re reminiscing over magazines, it seems …

in the July 22nd  2020 “CLEO and COMPANY” on Sherpa…

Though I’ve got news, Claude:

They ain’t what they yooster be.

 

Four years ago, I wanted magazines, to take with me when I thought I might spend a few weeks without internet.

I hadn’t bought one in years…

I get my share from AAA and Costco, an insurance company…. unasked for catalogs… you know the stuff…

No articles you can sit down and sink your teeth into.

 

The first thing I noticed was sticker shock… new mags were half as thick and over twice the price that I remembered.

But Costco sells the latest issue of four different ones, bundled in a plastic bag, at less than half price.

So I got… I think… Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day (which when I was a little kid cost a nickel at the grocery checkout) … maybe Redbook, and something else… I don’t remember which.

 

There was nothing to remember.

All four had more ads than content.

Two or three page articles, with so many pictures the text could have fit in half a page.

One was more about clothes… very mall-style clothes… another had more recipes, but they were made with convenience foods.

One was so slim it was half a magazine.

Turn it over, and upside down, it’s a parenting mag.

 

I “read” two…Last year I found the other two, unread and forgotten, on a shelf, and left them at the doctor’s office.

(yeah yeah, that’s why you find two year old magazines in the waiting room.

It’s all my fault.)