When I was a kid growing up in the 1950s, the world of outdoor magazines had something for everyone, young or old.
The “big three” were Outdoor Life, Sports Afield and Field & Stream, the latter of which garnered by far the cream of the crop, having attracted far and away the best writers.
Each of the publications had its own agenda, however—so much so that one old outdoor freelancer who hailed from southern McDowell County once told me that if you wanted to get published in one of those three publications you had to tailor your offering precisely.
“If you are lucky enough to shoot a grizzly on Kodiak Island off the coast of Canada and you want to show your audience how to skin it, send the piece to Sports Afield.
“If the grizzly charges and you gun it down at close range, then Outdoor Life is your option, specifically for its adventure tales.
“If on the other hand, you and your spouse have a wonderful hunting experience, rich in aesthetic rewards (but never really bagged anything whatsoever), your piece is made to order for Field & Stream.”
The fella went by the name of George Spitzer, a McDowell County native, born and bred for the outdoors. He was also a self-taught taxidermist of passable repute. I forget his pen name, something like Buzz Whitman, or was it, Whitley? I recall his father owned a grocery store, replete with a delivery truck, often so weighted down that the tailgate barely cleared the rough, rock-laden, hollow thoroughfares.
The avid sportsman must have subscribed to just about every outdoor magazine popular at the time. I borrowed more than a few of them and took them home to peruse instead of doing my homework, taking out the trash, or cutting the grass.
One of my favorite writers at the time was the famous Jack O’Connor, who could turn out volumes on every rifle caliber you could name, even the most esoteric chambers left over from the World Wars, my preferred weapons at the time.
There were, however, other pleasures to be relished from these old magazines. Take the 1959 Christmas issue of one that featured advertisements for Belgium-made Browning shotguns for about $125, Pflueger Supreme casting reels for about $35, Italian-made switchblades (now probably illegal) for about $5. A high school friend and I each ordered one that we carried and flicked out occasionally at local pool parlors just to show our bluff and brashness. Wonder we didn’t get bludgeoned with a cue stick.
On average, meanwhile, those old columnists from the outdoor periodicals seemed to have been accorded with unlimited space. A single article could go on for pages, jumping and skipping to sheets dominated by the latest fishing, hunting, boating, and camping advertisements.
Although there were certainly lots of short tips, editors and readers seemed just as appreciative of fine writing as they were of useful information.
By contrast, most editorial material in outdoor publications today ironically is designed for an abysmally short attention span, and seldom accompanied by more than a single generic, money-saving piece of art or photograph.
Lots of photos accompanied many of those articles of the 50s, enough to give you the true flavor and spirit of a trip or location. Magazine covers, meantime, were frequently evocative paintings—rather than pictures—rendered by exceptional artists of the day.
All those gentlemen once featured in the old outdoor sporting journals are long dead now. But they live on in the magazines once prized for their seemingly myriad annals of outdoor doings, often collected in sterling bound volumes and tomes, such as the memorable Best of Jack O’Connor. No outdoor magazine writing staffs before or since, in my meek opinion, can remotely compare.
Over the years, I often consulted some of those old monthlies at the local library when I was doing research for my outdoor newspaper column in the 1980s and 90s. Those classic feature story ideas never became stale or outdated when it came to fathers hunting and fishing with their offspring for the first time.
The essence of romanticism is a love for all things past.
It often seems that the older we get, the more of the past we accumulate and cherish, and the more apt we are to wallow in it.
In 1964, I was graduating from high school and considering a career in writing for the outdoors. Now, anytime I see an old outdoor magazine at a flea market or garage sale, I am reminded where that unlikely pipe dream originated.
Hunting and fishing were still honorable pursuits untainted by political correctness in the 1950s, when outdoor journalism was arguably at its peak.
It is, no doubt, understandable why so many of us wish this were still true.
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Top o’ the morning!