Old magazines, old memories ...

My eldest daughter flew from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in August to get me started cleaning up the garage.  It used to be my late husband's domain.  It was packed full (not with vehicles though.)  It was not easy moving around with bicycles, boxes, broken lamps, furniture and more.  For three days we worked non-stop then had to call a junk-man to take all our discards away.  I sat on a chair watching them load it all, including our two bicycles bought in San Francisco in the mid 1960s.

When she left, only one third of the garage was cleaned up, a bit.  Then I alternated cleaning the garage and other interior rooms as it was quite warm in the garage.  My late husband kept everything.  He had been an executive at the Georgia Wildlife Federation and had started a beautiful colorful magazine there for which he was the editor.  I found many issues throughout the house and kept them to give to family and friends as mementos.  He had started writing for the Southern Wildlife Magazine then went on to create the Federation's magazine.  Some of the issues were on a single subject, such as an issue on the Chattahoochee River; they all included outstanding photographs.

One morning I went back to the garage trying to clean up toward the side windows.  It was laborious.  I finally cleared a few boxes, suitcases and lamps.  Behind another couple of boxes was a small bookshelf.  I had bought this bookshelf in San Francisco in the 1960s and thought that it had been given away in the early 1970s when we moved from Decatur, GA, to this house in Cobb County, GA.  But it was there unbeknownst to me.  It was full of magazines and sundry items.  I sat on a stool and started looking at the magazines.  There were Family Circle, National Geographic, Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies' Home Journal and a huge amount of French magazines, such as Jour de France, Femme Actuelle and mostly Paris Match.  At the time I had a French friend who gave me her magazines (she moved back to Paris.)  I thought they had been thrown away; recycling had not started yet in our area - but there they were ...  (Click on collage to enlarge.)

My husband must have kept filling the shelves with discarded magazines then piled up boxes around the bookshelf and it had disappeared from view.  Some of the magazines were musty but most were in great condition.  I started placing them in blue recycling bags and took them to the den - they were heavy.

Deciding to take a break I selected several magazines and brought them to the kitchen for a closer look.  The 1976 issue of National Geographic had an article on climate change, yes back in 1976!  It was fun looking at the old advertisements - such huge automobiles ... true gas guzzlers!

I never was that keen on large American cars.  As a teenager my dream car was the British Jaguar, like this 1958 Jaguar XK-150 at the top of the collage below.  But then my first "steady" boy-friend in Paris owned a 1960 MG-MGA and it was nice and very similar to the Jaguar.  However, he never let me drive it (I had a car then, but it was an old Simca-Fiat coupe.)  In the picture below I am opening the driver's door, but that's it.  It was taken on the hilly street going toward the Sacre-Coeur of Montmartre, near my parents' apartment in Paris.  That was when my girl friend had dyed my hair a brunette and it had upset my parents very much.  His MG can't be seen properly in the photo so I added another.

How about this Polaroid camera ad?  I had one in the 1970s.  Then I could not imagine cameras with memory cards, or being able to look at photos on a computer.  There was a fancy ad for Eastern Airlines flying into the future - but they flew into oblivion.

Behind the bookshelf were some older magazines even, some that my grandfather had given me.  They were "L'Illustration" published during the First World War with photos of the war effort.

There even was a "J'ai Vu" magazine with Czar Nicholas II on its cover.  I read that some people buy these old magazines for the quaint advertisements from that era.  It was like opening a door to the past.  I was touching them close to me now, but they came from another time, gone forever.

Next to the old bookshelf I found a cardboard suitcase - I had never seen it.  It was full of high school memorabilia from my husband - unbelievable.  Musty school publications spilled out.  I guess they were given to students at the time to educate them on current events.

Women magazines featured articles on knitting, embroidery, and crafting - more than nowadays.  A 1971 issue of Family Circle had an article about Mary Tyler Moore making jewelry by using pasta.  In a 1975 holiday magazine I saw that I had checked a vegetable recipe as "very good" in January 1976.

My husband had a subscription to Brown's Guide to Georgia.  I checked the Net to see if this magazine was still being published but it had stopped publication years ago.  Now old copies sold on eBay for $14 each and more!  So I checked the old issue of Paris Match - same thing.  As I tried taking pictures of them on my kitchen table it was a fight with Mitsouko my cat as she was watching her mouse game on my iPad and did not want to move.

Gourmet magazine was no longer being published either - I had placed many old copies in the recycling bags.  I had also placed all my copies of George magazine in a box to give away - I had about all of them from the first issue to the last published issue.  George (relating to George Washington) had been a glossy magazine published monthly by John F. Kennedy, Jr. from 1999 to 2001.  On a hunch, I just went to check it on eBay before making my collage and my jaws literally dropped - you can see my copy of Donald Trump on the cover in my box, and please check how much is requested for it on eBay in collage below!  So I checked my copy of Family Circle with Mary Tyler Moore, it's expensive as well.  I had intended to place all these magazines in my recycling bags ... I asked my daughters, and they both said "keep them" - but I am trying to clear out the house?

All right, I won't move the magazines for now.  Before leaving the garage I thought I'd check that little box on top of the shelf.  Again, it was full of very old receipts, cancelled checks from the 1960s and 1970s.  I left it there and just took a small package that contained some postcards.  I brought the package to the kitchen table to have a look, and then ... and then ... something came out with the postcards - three old letters and a postcard from Berkeley, California, sent by my first husband, Patrick.  I mentioned him in my post of June 21, 2013 "Recollection: being in San Francisco in the 1960s - part 2" (click here if you did not read it.)  He had sent these letters and postcard to me in the summer of 1966 while I was back in France.  They had sat in that box, undisturbed, for 53 years?  Good gracious.  It was like receiving a message in a bottle.  I certainly was surprised they were still there - they brought a few old memories.

It reminded me of the song "A Few Old Memories" -

Just a few old memories 

Slipped in through my door

Though I thought I had closed it

So tightly before

I can't understand it

Why it should bother my mind

For it all belongs to another place and time

   

Just a few old memories

Going way back in time

I can hardly remember...

...I can't understand it

Well I'm surprised at myself

First think tomorrow morning 

I'll clean off that shelf

OK, first thing tomorrow morning I'll clean all of this ...well...maybe later... I'm planning to leave early for the North Carolina and North Georgia mountains and take several days off to go and smell the fresh air, watch nature and the leaves turning gold.  I'm looking forward also to visit a Swiss friend from Lausanne who now lives in Hiawassee, GA., by beautiful Lake Chatuge.  I'll think about these letters another day...