I went to college in a small town. There was not that much to do. And this was just pre-Internet. We had some kind of ability to chat or something...I remember my future husband taking the cord out of his phone and plugging it into his computer...but there was no firing up Google for an evening's entertainment.
In a lot of ways, in fact, living at that college had more in common with the 19th century than the world we live in now. I don't usually say things like that, because I do think all this "the world has changed forever" crap is seriously overblown. Texting, for example. Everyone makes such a big deal about texting. Why? It's passing notes! It's PASSING NOTES, people. Just with pixels.
However. I would definitely concede that it is no longer possible to be bored in quite the same way that we were bored back on that campus. I used to look forward to getting my biweekly Rolling Stone with the kind of intensity people usually reserve for orgasm. It actually mattered to me who was on the cover, because I was stuck with it. If I didn't like it, I couldn't just click my way over to something I liked better.
Speaking of which: I am very sure that, eventually, we will all be returned to exactly that state of affairs. I don't think the free-in-every-sense-of-the-word Internet can last. Given the history of radio, which initially showed the same promise, I am quite sure that corporations will figure out a way to get full control of the Internet, returning content to a much scarcer and more rationed condition. And then we will adjust our whalebone corsets, blow out our kerosene lamps, and put on our mobcaps before going to bed.
Anyhow!
Besides lurking at my mailbox like a deranged lover every other Wednesday, I always counted the minutes until new magazine day in town. Once a week, the weeklies and a certain number of monthlies would update, and you could count on me to be there. At first the magic day was Monday, then it switched to Wednesday. It always, without fail, happened by noon. And so I could get my pop-culture fix: the metal mags, the general music magazines (more, I think, than there are today), entertainment magazines, big glossies like Vogue. I loved them all.
For everything else, I used the new-periodical stacks in the library. There was no special "day" that I remember; I don't think there was a rhythm to their updates. But I kept coming back anyhow, because where else could you find a glossy tattoo magazine (I can't remember the name of it, but the art was eye-popping), the Native American Times (of which I was a devoted and appalled reader), and something called Eugenics Quarterly (I swear I am not making that up) all on the same shelf? It was heaven.
I actually did get a great education at college, just not in class.
