Nostalgia: Dynamite

The Bionic Woman on the cover the month I turned 10

Perhaps it's the rapid advance of time or the ever-present reminder that I'm getting older or maybe it's just the dawn of a new year that has had me feeling a bit nostalgic this week.

Out of nowhere as I was experiencing a wave of nostalgia, a flurry of images raced through my head, each one more powerful than the next in its celebration of the awful that was the 1970's. Each one of those images came from the same place. They were covers from "Dynamite" magazine.

Please, please, please tell me you remember this monthly love letter to pop culture disguised as educational material since it was shilled sold by Scholastic. That's right, you could order it straight from your teacher or you could get a subscription. I was one of those who had a subscription. It was my direct link to pop culture.  Each month, I waited by the mailbox to see what it would bring. Who would be on the cover? 'Please let it be one of the foxes (yes, I said it, foxes) from Charlie's Angels!' was a common prayer I uttered at the mailbox. What one of the "Bummers" would I agree with? This stuff was awesome.  At least that's the way it seemed when I was 10 and 11.

Like so many things in pop culture, the 'Dynamite' star seemed to fade away as quickly as it burst into my world. Turns out, this thing was published for 18 years - from 1974 to 1992. I had no idea. I have no idea to this day how it stayed relevant for that long. What other magazine could get away with cheesy headlines like this: 'The Invisible Man - TV's Most Outtasite Character!' I so wish I'd made that up, but that was a real one.

Now my magazine reading (Fast Company, Mental Floss, Al Jazeera) is mostly done on my iPad and it's brilliant visual interactive experience.  But I'm not waiting breathlessly by the mailbox anymore to see what surprises 'Dynamite' would bring. Simpler times...sometimes, just sometimes, I miss that.