As you know, THE Mother Earth News" is a rather timeless periodical. After all, an article telling how to milk a cow or build a 97% energy self-sufficient house can be just as valuable to anyone looking for that particular information 10 years from now ... as it is today ... or as it was when MOTHER first published it. And, for that reason, we've been keeping all of this magazine's back issues continuously in print ever since MOTHER NO. 1 was distributed January 1, 1970.
We've been doing the same thing for MOTHER's sister publication, LIFESTYLE! ... which was actually "alive" for only 16 months (from October 1972 until January 1974). But, as we announced some months back (we tried to break the news early enough so that the real LIFESTYLE! fans among us would have plenty of time to complete their backfiles), those happy days of all-issues-are-still-in-print are drawing to a close.
LIFESTYLE! NOS. 1 & 8 are now no more. We've still got a good stock of that magazine's other six issues and the protective slipcase to put 'am in. But LIFESTYLE! NOS. 1 & 8 are gone. And the moral, of course, is that if you still want to add to your files all the solid, how-to, alternative energy and low-cost building and cooking with honey and free school and ecoflight and intentional community and co-op and other information packed into those remaining six issues of LIFESTYLE! ... time's a'wasting! You'd better hustle your order for LIFESTYLE! NOS. 2-7 (plus slipcover) on in while the get tin's still good.
And the same thing, as you can well imagine, can be said about MOTHER too. We haven't hit the absolute bottom of the barrel on any of her back issues yet ... but the stock of every one of MOTHER's old numbers-from 1 to 47-dwindles daily. And if you're one of the more rabid readers of THE Mother Earth News", we'd hate to see you come up missing two or three issues of the magazine in your personal permanent collection. (Especially when right now is such a good time to drop a hint to the rest of the family that what you'd really like for Christmas is a complete backfile of THE MOTHER EARTH N EWS!)
So you've had your "word to the wise", fair warning, the red flag waved in your face, or whatever you want to call it. We can't guarantee how long our remaining stock of LIFESTYLE!s or MOTHERs will last ... but we do know that "when they're gone, they're gone". The next move is up to you.
For the past couple of years, we've occasionally livened the P & S pages of this publication with the deucedly clever cartoons drawn by one Jack the Vaughan (a shy, sly presence that from time to time lurks among the ink bottles and rubber cement cans in MOTHER's layout department).
Well, thanks to some format and policy changes on this end ... Jack's work has been squeezed out of the last few MOTHERs. And this fact has been duly noted in as many as one letter (Thanks, Sylvia Anderson!-Jack Vaughan.) which poured in to our offices complaining about this deletion from MOTHER's pages.
So, for all you Jack Vaughan fans (and we know that Sylvia Anderson is only one of many, many, many) ... page 158 of this issue is just for you. And if any of you want to see more of Ole Crazy Jack's work, let us know. Even if he is a little shifty-eyed and does do his b only with a quill pen made from a petrified lure feather under the light of the full moon ... we don't mind letting him out of the dungeon from time to time.
And that's a lot more important to MOTHER's staff than you can probably even imagine.
See it's like this: The first issue of THE Mother Earth News,as I'm sure you know, was published on January 1, 1970. We had a total operating bankroll at that time of $1,500 (half of which went to the printer before we were allowed to pick up and distribute the first run of the first MOTHER). Everyone- family, friends, other residents of the Ohio town in which MOTHER was launched, magazine retailers, and periodical distributors of all kinds-told us we were crazy to even think about publishing what they usually referred to as a "hippie" (haven't heard that term for two or three years now) magazine.
Especially since we had absolutely no contacts in the publishing field. Especially since we had no major advertising lined up in advance. Especially since "everyone knows" you can't start a new national publication in the 70's on only $1,500. Especially since a lot of other reasons.
And, of course, all those generous advisors (generous, at least, with advice ... no one, as we recall, offered to loan us any money) were right. We were crazy to try to publish a brandnew magazine about environmentally sound ways of life and "alternative" sources of energy and ultra-low-cost construction concepts and home businesses and recycling and all the rest of MOTHER's subjects ... especially since we only had $1,500 to work with.
But maybe we were just too ignorant to realize that there wasn't more than one chance in 10,000 that this magazine would ever succeed. Or maybe we actually knew, but were too damn bullheaded to admit it. Or maybe we simply wanted a magazine like this one to exist ... and wanted it so badly that we just wouldn't take "no" for an answer.
Whatever the reason may have been (and it was probably a combination of a lot of things), we never admitted that this publication was licked before it was started. And we never admitted that it was licked a great many times later (especially during those grindingly tough first five years) as we continued to force ourselves to put out one MOTHER after another ... often with little or no financial reserves, qualified help, equipment, or even space to work in.
And you know something? Just like all those old "you can do it" stories and books and movies (as opposed to the crap-except for "you can do it" Star Wars-which mostly fills TV screens and motion picture theaters today) used to tell us ... you really can make something happen if you believe in it strongly enough and refuse to take "no" for an answer. You can, at least, if you find the right kind of people to help you.
Because-slowly at first, and then faster and faster-over the years ... you found out about what we were trying to do. And you seemed to like our Idea and you responded to It in glorious fashion. With the single-copy purchase of MOTHER in bookstores and from newsstands all over this continent. By taking out regular subscriptions to the publication. By buying books from our mail-order bookstore. By (gulp) sticking your necks out for lifetime MOTHER subscriptions (2,370 so far!). By sending us a steady stream of articles, tips, leads, hints, and other information that we might be able to publish in these pages. By supporting our "alternative" energy, low-cost construction, and other experiments when so many others were still saying they couldn't be done. And by letting us know in hundreds of other ways-and in several million letters-that you appreciate what we're trying to do.
And thanks to that most welcome supportfrom you-we've been able, over the past eight years, to put together a danged professional crew of people on this end. And we've been able to pioneer some new (and far more environ mentally sound) ways of distributing our magazine than are usually practiced here in the U.S. and Canada. And we've been the first to break stories on a wide variety of solar, wind, methane, water, and other "alternative" sources of energy ... cordwood, log, underground, and other forms of low-cost construction ... foraged foods ... "organic" gardening ... home businesses ... recycling ... and other MOTHER subjects. And we've been ablefinally!-to establish that research lab of ours on a real, 100%-here-to-stay basis. And-finally!-we're working once again on the establishment and construction of an almost entirely energy self-sufficient, food self-sufficient, minimum-impact-on-the-planet community of passively solar-heated and -cooled homes, businesses, and shops.
For the first time in eight years, then, we're finally getting all our dreams of almost a decade ago cranked up and in operation. For the first time we're really beginning to feel that we're here to stay, that our editorial and typesetting and art people might-just might-someday be able to finish a MOTHER without working late so many evenings and through so many weekends, that we'll actually be able to show the world (sooner or later) that we really all can enjoy a high standard of living without plundering the planet.
Or, to put it another way: We're still trying to do far more than we'll ever be able to accomplish on this end, which means that we're probably just as crazy now as we were eight years ago when everybody told us we'd never get past MOTHER's first issue. But thanks to you, we did get past that first issue ... and 47 others so far. And thanks to you, we're now-for the first time in eight years-actually enjoying the luxury of catching our breath a little and planning ahead (which is a big change for us).
Your warm support has made this all possible and it's the best Christmas present we could have ever had and we love you for it. Thanks! We look forward to bringing you bigger and better MOTHERs-and a whole lot more-during the coming eight years.
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