Love At First Sight

The summer of 1977 will always and forever be special to me.  I had just graduated college, had been accepted to medical school, and had a cushy summer job back in the old home town.  With my first paycheck from said summer job, I headed down to the local CR Anthony's to pick up a pair of orange and yellow and red and blue  suspenders.  Everybody was wearing them that summer, and I had none.

I sauntered in to the store, and was greeted at the door by the salesgirl, who, it seemed, had also landed a summer job.  I was immediately smitten, and thought she was the cutest thing I had ever seen.  The Anthony's store had no suspenders that day, but I left with a name, and a number, and a future.  Thirty-eight years later, she is still the cutest thing I have ever seen, and I love her more deeply than ever.  Love at first sight, I guess you could say. 

As fate would have it, though, that was not the only life-long relationship I forged that summer.  I had occasion to visit the local First United Methodist Church Women's Bazaar and Garage sale.  In the sale was a low white wooden table, strewn with magazines for sale. One caught my eye-I hadn't seen this one before, and it appeared to be some sort of outdoorsy-type publication.  It had a coffee ring on it, and some random scribbling, but for a buck, I thought I could swing that and help the Methodist Women out in my own small way.  I was immediately taken by an article, "Scratching The Surface", by some Charlie Waterman dude.  Fortunately for me, the magazine had a subscription card still tucked in the binding.  I tore it out, attached a check for the required amount (also a benefit of said cushy summer job prior to heading off to medical school), and dropped it in the mail .  The magazine arrived in short order, wrapped in plastic and new and fresh with no ink stains and no coffee rings to be seen. Except for a short hiatus a year or so later when the publication fell on hard times and missed a few issues, I have them all.  All of them.  I have scoured them, cover to cover, for over thirty eight years.  The mag is about sport-the way I see it.  We seemed to be of one heart, and one mind.  I fell deeply in love, for the second time that summer.  This time, though, it was with a magazine.  Since 1977, I have seen changes in publishers and in editors and in the always-changing bevy of talented writes,but the literature, the art, the wisdom, and the  appreciation for the sporting life-especially the sporting life as it appeals to me, has been constant.  There is no nicer surprise than the appearance of a familiar, plastic-wrapped GSJ showing up in the daily mail.  It is always a surprise, and always a joy.  

So, Happy Fortieth Anniversary, GSJ.  Thanks for being an integral part of my adult life.  Thanks for sharing a vision of how the outdoors should be, how the sporting life should be lived, and for giving me joy and beauty.   Now-about those missing issues from 1978.....