THE SURPRISE IN THE MAILBOX...
Every now and then something happens that makes me just sit back, scratch my head and wonder at what point the cosmic axis shifted so violently that I ended up in a world so different from the one I grew up in.
Case in point:
Just before noon Tuesday, while putting together this week’s issue of the newspaper where I work as News Editor, I took a break long enough to walk across the street to the post office and retrieve my daily mail. One of the items I pulled out of the mailbox happened to be this month’s issue of AARP Magazine... and when I looked at the cover, what I saw stopped me in my tracks.
Understand: Two years after the fact, I still have trouble sometimes wrapping my head around the idea that I am chronologically advanced enough to even be receiving AARP Magazine. That’s something that OLD people get in the mail, for crying out loud!
It’s not just the idea that I’m old enough to be getting the magazine. Heck, I still remember the shock I felt when my parents started getting it - and it doesn’t seem like that has really been all that long ago.
Right or wrong – and I’ll be the first one to admit that “wrong” is probably the correct answer – I’ve always had a certain mental image of the sort of people who receive AARP Magazine. And I’m sorry, but the people in that image look an awful lot like my grandparents!
So imagine my surprise when I pull this month’s issue of AARP Magazine out of the mailbox and notice that the main headline on the cover reads as follows:
Best.
Sex.
Ever!
(We Show You How)
I’m pretty sure that if I had been chewing gum at the time, I would have swallowed it. As it was I did a double-take and immediately checked the masthead at the top of the cover again, to make sure I hadn’t accidentally been given somebody else’s copy of Cosmopolitan by mistake.
But no, there it was. The familiar AARP logo, big as life and in bright red ink to boot.
Well, my goodness!
All I know - and under the circumstances I’m reasonably certain that I can say this with little fear of contradiction - is that AARP sure seems to have changed since Grandma and Grandpa were members...
In : Pop Culture
Tags: aarp
John A. Small is an award-winning newspaper journalist, columnist and broadcaster whose work has been honored by the Oklahoma Press Association, the Society of Professional Journalists, the Associated Press, the National Newspaper Association, and the Oklahoma Education Association. He and his wife Melissa were married in 1986; they have two sons, Joshua Orrin (born 1991) and William Ian (born 1996).
Mr. Small is the News Editor and columnist for the Johnston County Capital-Democrat, a weekly newspaper headquartered in Tishomingo, OK. He obtained his nickname, "Bard of the Lesser Boulevards," from a journalism colleague - the late Phil Byrum - in recognition of the success of his popular newspaper column, "Small Talk." (In addition to the many awards the column itself has received over the years, a radio version of "Small Talk" earned an award for "Best Small Market Commentary" from the Society of Professional Journalists in 1998.)
John was born in Oklahoma City in 1963; lived in the Bradley-Bourbonnais-Kankakee area of Illinois for most of the next 28 years (with brief sojourns in Texas and Athens, Greece, thrown in to break up the monotony); then returned to his native state in 1991, where he currently resides in the Tishomingo/Ravia area. He graduated from Bradley-Bourbonnais Community High School in 1981, and received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais in 1991. The years between high school and college were a period frought with numerous exploits and misadventures, some of which have become the stuff of legend; nobody was hurt along the way, however, which should count for something.
In addition to his professional career as a journalist he has published two short story collections: "Days Gone By: Legends And Tales Of Sipokni West" (2007), a collection of western stories; and "Something In The Air" (2011), a more eclectic collection. He was also a contributor to the 2005 Locus Award-nominated science fiction anthology "Myths For The Modern Age: Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton Universe," edited by Win Scott Eckert. In additon he has written a stage play and a self-published cookbook; served as project editor for a book about the JFK assassination entitled "The Men On The Sixth Floor"; and has either published or posted on the Internet a number of essays, stories and poems.
He has also won writing awards from the Veterans of Foreign Wars and the National Library of Poetry. He is a past president of the Johnston County Chamber of Commerce in Tishomingo; was a charter member and past president of the Johnston County Reading Council, the local literacy advocacy and "friends of the library" organization; served as Johnston County's first-ever Americans with Disabilities Act coordinator in 1994-95; served two terms as chairman of the Johnston County (OK) Democratic Party; and has taught journalism classes for local Boy Scout Merit Badge Fairs. He is a member of the New Wold Newton Meteorics Society.
