Dave Wood

Folks used to ask why I took 10 years to write my doctoral dissertation and I usually reply “Because  I hated my topic about 18^th century British five-act comedies by author Henry Fielding and I did all manner of things to avoid writing it.” That’s true, but I never tell them about trudging to the skyscraper library at  Bowling Green and instead of going to the 18^th century British stacks, I’d head for the popular culture section and settle down for a few hours reading old editions of National Geographic, Time magazine, and Popular Mechanix, when I should have been  dipping into arcane tomes like the Journal of Germanic and English Philology, then falling asleep.

That’s why I still get excited whenever a reader sends me a memento. It’s not that I need mementos, but they give me proof that there’s at least one reader out there who has dipped into my published scribblings.  Also, such mementos provide me with grist for my writing mill. A few months back, Charlie Vanasse of Spring Valley gave me two copies of a wonderful 1928 magazine called “Farm Mechanics,” the ads in which included one for an “all in one” tractor cum other implements that inspired my uncle to hook together a series of implements that completed the tilling and sowing process in one fell swoop. Hence a recently published article on that machinery.

More recently Mike Albert, retired professor at River Falls who collects all manner of curious, old publications—postcards and the like – mails messages on them to friends. His latest missive, however, took the cake, a mint condition copy of a 1964 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, with a cover photo of one of my heroes, President Harry S. Truman, about whom I’ve probably written too many times.

Remember that wonderful old magazine distributed by Curtis Publishing back in the Good Old Days? I most certainly do because during my childhood it occupied a prominent place in our household and millions of other domiciles in the post-World War II era, along with its competitor Colliers as well as Life magazine and its competitor Look. Those were the days: captured the nation’s imagination to the eternal cultural damnation of our society.

I had forgotten about the grand size of the old publication Mike sent – 80 pages in an 8 ½-inch by 13-inch format. Lots and lots of reading for kids and adults when they tired of listening to Inner Sanctum and Your Hit Parade on the old Coronado.

What a trip down memory lane! Fiction and reportage by then famous writers like Jimmy Breslin (who wrote about a hapless new team called the Mets), Roger Kahn, William Saroyan, Stewart Alsop, Ben Bagdikian, Pete Hamill, as well as a favorite of mine, Robert Massie, who immortalized the last Russian Romanovs for all time. I had forgotten how the olden times usually ran serialized novels. Mike’s copy introduced a three-part political thriller by Eugene Burdick, author of “The Ugly American” and “Fail-Safe,” which had previously appeared on its pages.       

The massive format allowed for spectacular graphics like a huge picture story about Harlem that I would probably have ignored in those feel-good days. An editorial by one of my favorite critics, Wilfred Sheed (whose photo made him look like teenager) made a pitch for the value of parochial schools, accompanied by an editorial disclaimer that Curtis Publishing didn’t necessarily agree with Sheed.

And the advertisements? Oh, my! Did they make me feel old? You bet your boots!

Here’s a sample, all done up in color with occasional illustrations by Norman Rockwell:

Beech-Nut gum, Crosley Broadcasting, Carlton Cigarettes (“with activated charcoal and precision air vents!”), Ford Comet Caliente, Cities Service gas, Yello-Bole Pipes, from $2.50, Fasteeth, Old Crow Whiskey, Master Padlocks, Employers Mutual of Wausau, Kelvinator refrigerators, Gates Air-float DeLuxe Tires (“They give a bonus of 5,000 to 8,000 miles!”)

So thanks, Mike Albert, for sending me this trip down memory lane. I still haven’t finished reading the Harry Truman story, but I’ll get to it. One more thing: The Post sold for two bits on the newsstand, or a 30- issue subscription cost $2.95 delivered to your door.

No wonder The Post went broke!

Dave would like to hear from you. Phone him at 715-426-9554.