Yesterday I received a postcard telling me my longtime monthly subscriptions to Field & Stream and Outdoor Life magazines will no longer be produced as hard copy. Instead I’ve been “upgraded” to the new digital versions, which will now be produced quarterly. Such is progress, I’m told.
I reckon I can understand the economics, printing costs, and paper resource usage issues contributing to such corporate decision making, but I will certainly miss getting them in the mailbox. I’ve just not been able to glean the same satisfaction reading on a screen that I do from thumbing through a magazine (this forum notwithstanding.)
As a kid growing up in the ‘70s, these magazines, along with G&A and Shooting Times, were my monthly dose of adventure, technique, and knowledge. In those pages I found inspiration, and the life I lead today is a direct result of aspiring to experiencing the same adventures my young mind absorbed from those pages.
Field & Stream began in 1895 and Outdoor Life in 1898. Generations of American sportsmen and outdoorsmen benefitted from these magazines in innumerable ways. At many times, The monthly circulation numbers of these publications was over a million – talk about popular! Writers such as Townsend Whelen, Jack O’Connor, Robert Ruark, Warren Page, Larry Koller, Gene Hill, Jim Carmichel, Ted Trueblood and many others educated, amused, and guided us with their articles and features. Some of that knowledge has aged well, some not so much, but the fact remains that these print institutions were an integral part of the fabric of the American outdoors experience.
I’ve got old copies of these magazines, some going back into the 1940s, and thumbing through them is nostalgic and illuminating, a window to a bygone era. I even still seek out certain issues, in fact I recently found a January 1954 F&S and bought it because I wanted to see the real article (heh!) of Robert Ruark’s account of his first Cape Buffalo hunt. Like an old movie or an old song, these old print articles transport me back to another time and allow me a perspective on a time long past. Of course, the art and advertising of the time is an added bonus, and illustrates an America we will not see the likes of again.
I’ve amassed a library of over 400 volumes on shooting, hunting, and firearms. All those books on all those shelves are there because I was inspired by men who went looking for adventure, acquired their skills and knowledge, and took the time to write it down for an appreciative audience, in the pages of America’s outdoors sporting magazines.
I will miss them.
/curmudgeonly reminiscence
I reckon I can understand the economics, printing costs, and paper resource usage issues contributing to such corporate decision making, but I will certainly miss getting them in the mailbox. I’ve just not been able to glean the same satisfaction reading on a screen that I do from thumbing through a magazine (this forum notwithstanding.)
As a kid growing up in the ‘70s, these magazines, along with G&A and Shooting Times, were my monthly dose of adventure, technique, and knowledge. In those pages I found inspiration, and the life I lead today is a direct result of aspiring to experiencing the same adventures my young mind absorbed from those pages.
Field & Stream began in 1895 and Outdoor Life in 1898. Generations of American sportsmen and outdoorsmen benefitted from these magazines in innumerable ways. At many times, The monthly circulation numbers of these publications was over a million – talk about popular! Writers such as Townsend Whelen, Jack O’Connor, Robert Ruark, Warren Page, Larry Koller, Gene Hill, Jim Carmichel, Ted Trueblood and many others educated, amused, and guided us with their articles and features. Some of that knowledge has aged well, some not so much, but the fact remains that these print institutions were an integral part of the fabric of the American outdoors experience.
I’ve got old copies of these magazines, some going back into the 1940s, and thumbing through them is nostalgic and illuminating, a window to a bygone era. I even still seek out certain issues, in fact I recently found a January 1954 F&S and bought it because I wanted to see the real article (heh!) of Robert Ruark’s account of his first Cape Buffalo hunt. Like an old movie or an old song, these old print articles transport me back to another time and allow me a perspective on a time long past. Of course, the art and advertising of the time is an added bonus, and illustrates an America we will not see the likes of again.
I’ve amassed a library of over 400 volumes on shooting, hunting, and firearms. All those books on all those shelves are there because I was inspired by men who went looking for adventure, acquired their skills and knowledge, and took the time to write it down for an appreciative audience, in the pages of America’s outdoors sporting magazines.
I will miss them.
/curmudgeonly reminiscence
