I miss magazines.
Real magazines. Paper magazines with glossy covers and crisp, colorful pages that smelled faintly of ink.
Yes, I know magazines still exist, but not like they did in the 1980s and ’90s.
I discovered my love of magazines through the teen publications featuring all the latest heartthrobs and movie stars. They were basically tabloids for teenagers, and we couldn’t get enough.
I’ve written before about my devotion to fashion magazines. Seventeen and Glamour were my favorites, and I subscribed to both. There was something incredibly indulgent about receiving a magazine in the mail addressed specifically to me, wrapped in plastic, before I was even old enough to drive.
But the teen idol magazines were different. Those required careful selection.
Every Saturday, I went to Consumer’s Grocery Store in West Plains with my mom. Before I could drive and go places on my own, even a trip to the grocery store felt like an outing. Mom would stop near the periodicals and pick out a new murder mystery paperback while I carefully studied the covers of the teen magazines.
There was Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, 16, Bop, and probably several others I’ve forgotten.
I knew I could only have one, so this was serious business.
I usually narrowed my choice down to Tiger Beat or Teen Beat, and the final decision often came down to the foldout poster in the middle. If it was Leif Garrett, I’d probably keep looking. But young John Stamos? Matt Dillon? Now we had something to discuss.
Once home, I would spend the rest of the weekend reading every word, studying every photograph, and taking every quiz designed to determine whether I was datable, kissable, lovable, or destined to marry whichever celebrity happened to be on page 37.
My bedroom walls were covered with posters, most of them pulled from the center of magazines. Madonna, Prince, and an ever-changing rotation of 1980s poster boys looked down upon me while a growing stack of magazines occupied a corner of the room.
My friends and I traded posters too. One girl’s discard was another girl’s future husband. An entire teenage economy ran on glossy pictures, Scotch tape, and who was willing to surrender Matt Dillon.
I could never bear to throw the magazines away.
Even after we outgrew the teen heartthrob magazines, the ritual remained. By high school, it wasn’t unheard of for a few of us to skip an afternoon of school, end up at my house and spend hours sprawled around my bedroom flipping through my back issues of Glamour and Seventeen.
As I got older, my magazine tastes changed. After becoming a mother, I added parenting magazines and Better Homes and Gardens to the mix, although I remained loyal to Glamour long after college.
Then, somewhere along the way, I simply stopped subscribing.
About a year ago, I was sitting in a service center waiting for an oil change when I picked up an October issue of Better Homes and Gardens. As I flipped through those carefully curated pages, I was unexpectedly transported back to a slower version of life, one in which sitting down with a magazine counted as something to do.
Right then, I scanned the little QR code and subscribed.
Now Better Homes and Gardens arrives in my mailbox every month.
I would love to tell you I pour a cup of coffee, settle into a chair, and thoughtfully read each issue from cover to cover.
I do not.
I casually flip through it and then place it in a basket in the corner of my dining room, where several magazines sit slightly askew in what has become an unintentionally intentional display of yesterday. I periodically throw out the older ones and strategically place the most seasonal cover on top.
Maybe I keep subscribing because I still believe there is something important about holding the written word in your hands. I write a newspaper column, for crying out loud.
But it’s more than that.
There is something satisfying about turning a page. The rustle of paper. The smell of newsprint or slick magazine stock. The tiny commitment required to keep reading because you can’t simply swipe it away.
A screen can show us the same words and pictures.
But it can’t take me back to Saturday afternoons at Consumer’s Grocery Store, standing beside my mother while she chose a murder mystery and I faced the very serious responsibility of deciding which heartthrob deserved the center spot on my bedroom wall.
Before we scrolled, we turned the page.
And sometimes, I miss that more than I realized
Laura (Wright) Jones is a former West Plains resident and a writer now living in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with her husband Jeff and their two Morkies Jonesy and Mookie. Her column, “Dear West Plains,” is a love letter to her hometown and the stories that shaped her. Her email address is laura.jones062869@gmail.com
