I have a cartoon in one of them showing a man, and woman in bed amid a pile of fallen GEOGRAPHICS, and plaster, a large hole in the ceiling above them, more geographics visable through the hole. The wife, scowling, is saying. "You, and your National Geographics." I can relate. My National Geographic collection dominates my library (aka bedroom). I have an extensive collection starting in the early 50's and going almost UN-interrupted up to the present.
They fill a bookshelf over five feet long. They fill 4 plastic milk crates. I even have a couple of hundred in our storage rental. Now there are three stacks, over three feet tall, in my floor. I'm looking for "the place" to put them. I just acquired ten years worth of them free from a local man, who advertised.. "FREE..10 YEARS OF NATIONAL GEO GRAPHICS-MUST TAKE ALL OF THEM" I ask you..What could I do?
My love of National Geographic goes all the way back to Wisconsin (As so many of my foundational milestones do.) My, wonderfull, favorite, aunt Jessie had them in her magazine rack, and lying in the floor by her couch. I would also pore over them like treasures in the libraries of my school, and the city. I have always been fascinated by the photos, and stories,of far away places, and peoples. And,being a young boy in the early days of the space race, the magazine was a jackpot! I still go back now, and re-read those same issues that delighted me as a child.
But I'll never forget the day I struck the motherlode. I was at my great aunt Ruby's house,exploring as youing boys do, and saw the fold-down stairs. A secret room! I had to go up there. And what I found, to this day, sends delightfull shivers up my back. The small attic room was lined from floor to ceiling, on three walls, with hundreds, and hundreds of NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazines!!! I spent many contented hours in that little room,roaming the world, and the universe.
I look around me now, in this small room, and I see it reflected. Bookcases line the walls from floor to ceiling, on three walls. And many of those same magazines that filled my young mind with knowledge, and wonder, are here. In this room.
