A MAGAZINE ABOUT THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Here I am again writing about the past, as I said in a comment on my last review, it must have something to do with spring. As the saying goes in spring a young man’s fancy turns to love, well mine must turn to those good old days of the past. Another thing happened after I wrote the last review I received my magazine called REMINISCE and it started the memory business to work overtime.

I have subscribed to the magazine REMINISCE for more than 10 years. I even have given this magazine as gifts to older people to give them a look into those days gone by.
This magazine covers exclusively; items, photographs and articles of how things were in the olden days. So many of us older folks love to look back on these times as days of tranquility and love to read and write about them. We were not absorbed with material things and were not constantly trying to wish for things that we could not afford.

UNIQUE AND INTERESTING
This magazine is unique in many ways, it does not carry advertisements and it is filled with articles and photographs that are sent in by their subscribers. They are continuing to ask for more input from their members and are usually swamped with replies. The magazine is printed to look like the old time expensive slick magazines of the past. If you want to read about America and how things were and how we progressed in time, this would be a magazine for you. It gives you personal stories of the home life scene, war stories, businesses people were involved in, plus what entertainment we enjoyed. I will give you a review of this magazine and it’s unique format.

HOW TO SUBSCRIBE
The REMINISCE was the first magazine published by the Reiman Publishing, LLC and is issued six times a year. Their editorial offices are at 5400 So. 60th. St. Greendale, WI, 53129. A yearly subscription cost is $17.98 for one year or $29.98 for 2 years or $39.98 for three years. Send new subscription to the following address: REMINISCE P.O. 5282, Harlan, IA 51593. They also have a Web site of www.reimanpub.com and you can find out more about this unusual magazine. I just received their May/June issue and spent some time reading some interesting articles that are fun to read.

WRITTEN BY SUBSCRIBERS
The first things you notice about this magazine are the pictures these are pictures that subscribers have sent in with an interesting story to go with them. The magazine always gives credit to each person’s published submission. This magazine had over 200 contributors from all over the United States. They have a little box called “Look Who’s Talking” on page 45 and list the city, town and states of where these people are from. Throughout the magazine their names and town is clearly mentioned following their contribution. They mention almost on every page of how to join in and send them articles and pictures, they include instructions on this page called “Want to Send a Memory”. You will be enticed to send in a good memory, but be warned they do not pay in cash. Some of the larger articles may receive a model 1957 Chevrolet classic car as a memento that you have been published.

MORE AND MORE
I have been enticed in send in items during my early years of subscribing, but never received any of their mementos. They do not always inform you if some of your lesser items may be used in other magazines they publish. Reiman does publish many other magazines, included REMINISCE EXTRA which comes on the alternate months from the original REMINISCE so you can get a yearly coverage. Some of the other magazines include Country, Quick Cooking plus books with this same old time theme. They have a flier that is included in each magazine with items to order from their Country Store, so they have expanded into commercialism like everything else these days. I look them over but have never ordered anything.

SAMPLE OF ARTICLES
Now for a few articles that took my fancy, first was titled “I never dreamed I’d become a Rockette!” written by Rita Macjeski Monsees of Garden City, New York. She tells of taking tap dancing lesson in 1942 and her teacher thought she should try out for the Rockettes. She was excited to be chosen and became a Rockette for that summer while the original dancers were on vacation. She continued each summer until 1947 but says she still keeps in touch with the girls. Good pictures of her and the Rockette line enhanced this article.

Another article that caught my eye was called “The Life of Spice” by Jim Koss from Aloha, Oregon, explaining his collection of antique spice tins. He started with two tins from his Grandmothers farm home in Oklahoma in the 1950’s. It has expanded into around 600 spice tins. He became fascinated with the origin of spices and the spice trade. This is what interested me in this article as I wrote a book about the history of the spice trade. This article on spice tins also brought back memories, the pictures of the author and his collection made a great read.

Many of the articles are a combination of letter sent in from readers as requested by the editors. If they want to show antique cars they ask for readers to send in their pictures and memories of their cars. Another was “My Brush with Stardom” relating when you had the pleasure of meeting the stars, one was from Rosemary Trettin, Appleton, WI when she met Ronald Reagan in 1954 as he was filming a movie with Barbara Stanwyck. She had a chance to take his picture, later sending a copy of it to him when he was President and he kindly replied with a letter and a photo of himself. One my husband thought was funny was called “Remember the House out Back?” different stories of that useful building called the Outhouse.

ALWAYS SOMETHING TO AMUSE YOU
This item made me smile as it was from Wallace Johnson, Crescent City, CA, as he related picking potato bug in his Grandmothers garden. Just after I had posted my review yesterday of mentioning this was not one of my favorite things to do back then. Another came when reading “Calling on the Old Party Line” one was called “Dutch” to eavesdrop. This was when her mother and grandmother who were Pennsylvania Dutch and to keep their talk private spoke in their language. This never worked for us as to many of my relative could understand our Dutch language. I related my experience of the first time using the phone to call our Central Operator for an emergency when my mother was ill.

SPECIAL FEATURES
One feature that has never changed is “Finding Hattie’s Hat Pin”. This is a picture of a hat pin and it is hidden somewhere in the magazine. If you find it you must send a postcard to REMINISCE and tell them on what page you found the hat pin. Include your name and address and if you are correct you will receive a prize, they give out 50 in each edition. The prize this issue was for one-of-a-kind premixed ingredients for cookies called “MMMMinnesota Munchers”.

They have a section on Antiques called “I’m curious about this Antique”, where you can send in a picture and description of your item and Jeff Hembel the Antique Appraiser will tell you more about the item and what it may be worth. This section always interests me as I have several items I should send a picture of, just to see what they are worth. You will find many more interesting things to read in this REMINISCE magazine, but the back cover also brought a smile. It shows a little boy about 10 or so at the piano with his ball and glove lying next to the music. This could have been a picture of me at that age, my mother thought I should take piano lessons, which I hated, and would much rather have been playing softball. Since sayings are my favorite, they also include several of these along the sides of several pages, with the name of the person sending it in. I will close with one from Rose Kniser from Portland, Or: MAY YOU NEVER FORGET WHAT IS WORTH REMEMBERING OR REMEMBER WHAT IS BEST TO FORGET!!