Don’t tell me! You’re going to give me a history lesson about the Saturday Evening Post!
It was just over two centuries ago on August 4, 1821 that one of the more iconic periodicals in American culture saw its first issue published, the legendary Saturday Evening Post. It’s almost hard to believe the weekly magazine traces its existence back that far given that its glory days would not come until the early to mid 20th century. The Post featured a calliope of material from news articles to fiction and non-fiction stories to cartoons to….. well, whatever. Kind of like a certain blog did back before it only made three posts a week.
It also made a star out of artist Norman Rockwell, who was quite a bit more talented than that Evil Squirrel hack.
When you think of classic Americana, you think of Rockwell and his illustrations for The Saturday Evening Post. But with the advent of television for the masses in the 50’s, magazine readership declined across the board, and the Post was one of the hardest hit in readership loss. Beginning in 1963, it became the Every Other Saturday Evening Post (They didn’t call it that, but they should have). The presses stopped “for good” in 1969, but The Post would not die and was relaunched as a quarterly periodical two years later. You can now have The Saturday Evening Post delivered to your mailbox six times a year, or about 46 fewer Saturday evenings than there typically are in a year…
Digger the Dermatophyte urges you to subscribe!
Now let’s return from the good old days of the Great Depression and World War II and answer Melanie’s questions for this week’s Share Your World feature!
Norman Rockwell IV
Do you ever feel more excited about getting the package in the mail, rather than the item that’s in it?
Not really….. although, being a hoarder, I do save all those packages. Seriously, there aren’t many packaging boxes I’ve ever had delivered to me that I don’t still have somewhere in my nest…
And they make good props for Shelf Critter Theatre.
What is the difference between your ideal self and your real self?
The main difference between my ideal self and my real self is a matter of location. My ideal self lives in the ideal world which is not a part of the real world I live in. I’m sure my ideal self is having a ball out there in that ideal universe where everything is hunky dory and peachy keen! I’d also probably not want to know that guy….
My ideal self is probably in his ideal world playing with this Ideal Evil Knievel rescue set. Grand Canyon not included.
If you found $2,000 on the ground and there were no witnesses, what would you do with it?
My ideal self would turn it in to the police…. no wait, in the ideal world, nobody would randomly lose $2,000 on the streets. My real self would be keeping it, though I’ve never found more than ten bucks in the wild before…
I wonder who the owner of this money is…… NOT!
Are you ever morally obliged to take action? Under what circumstances?
That depends on what your morals are. I’m not the biggest fan/believer in a set, common morality system that applies to everybody… so nobody should feel morally obligated to do anything they don’t want to.
Damn right! Now let me out of here!!!
Please feel free to share how last week went for you. Bright or not so bright spots?
Just another week…
Evil Squirrel's Nest 
The SEP was as mainstay in our home when I was growing up. I didn’t know you could still get it!
I wouldn’t have guessed it was still around either until that Lamisil ad aired on TV a while back and said to look for its ad in there. I also wouldn’t have imagined it started way back in the 1820’s…
Ahh, the Saturday Evening Post…and by association, Life magazine. Two impactful periodicals I grew up with and enjoyed Too bad hedge funders are systematically ruining print publications in general.
I was surprised to read that magazines were already going out of style back in the 60’s, as they seemed alive and well when I was growing up. Now you can’t even find them in waiting rooms because they just assume everyone has a phone to play with…
After the panDAMNic my dentist cancelled over 50 subscriptions for obvious reasons at the time. It bummed me out whenever I have to wait because I think it’s rude to use your phone in public like that.
HA! That Evel Knievel Rescue Set is amazing….just proves that anything is possible in the toy aisle. Norman Rockwell – I have always loved his “slice of life” paintings….good stuff.
Pam
If only Norman had been around to paint Evel Knievel jumping over a series of 10 fountains on his motorcycle. It would be a masterpiece!
I a year, that bill will buy a fill up at a gas station. (you will need more for hi-test).
Good thing I only need to fill up every three weeks…
wow what happened… why buster survived? ist was such a special week?
Buster is just as baffled as you are!
You better hope that two grand doesn’t belong to someone with a name like “Nails McGraw” and a reputation for impromptu kneecap surgery…
Hopefully Nails is in the Ideal World and can break the kneecaps of my ideal self. My ideal self deserves a little taste of reality…