Adios, Popular Mechanics!!

 Sixty years ago, while waiting to get a haircut at the Tampa Barber College in downtown Tampa, I discovered Popular Mechanics in the magazine rack. I read as much as I could while waiting my turn for a haircut and then grabbed the magazine out of my brother's hand when it was his turn for a trim. I thought that it was the greatest magazine that I had ever read and at age seven, it probably was.

Over the next sixty years, I read Popular Mechanics as regularly as I could. I read it at the barber shop, at the Tampa public library, at the school library, anywhere I found a copy. For many years, as an adult, I subscribed to Popular Mechanics. I saved many of the issues and read them year after year. I still buy old copies from the 1950's and the 1960's to read. 

However, a few years ago, the magazine started to "evolve". The magazine joined the cultural worship of technology. When I was in junior high, a kid at school build a mini-bike that folded up and fit into his locker at school. Yes, it was inspired and adapted from an article in Popular Mechanics. Popular Mechanics had projects and solutions for people at all skill levels. I built a chair for my mother from plans in Popular Mechanics. There was information in there that was "user friendly".  You didn't need to be an engineer to appreciate Popular Mechanics, but they may have inspired a bunch of kids to study engineering.

A couple of years ago, I decided to re-subscribe to Popular Mechanics. Alas, Thomas Wolfe may have been right. Maybe, you can't go home again. It's just not the Popular Mechanics that I have spent most of my life reading. 

A couple of months ago, they had an article about how to tear down a statue without getting hurt in their online edition. I sent an email comment which received no reply. Today, I saw an article from Popular Mechanics titled "Was Trump's Indoor Rally a Superspreader Event?" I read the article and like many other headlines in the news now, there was not a scrap of real evidence presented to validate the headline. The writer wrote extensively about a wedding in Maine earlier this year. This is not the Popular Mechanics that I loved. This is some kind of "Hoodlum's Handbook". 

It's been a hell of a ride. I hope that your new direction works out for you guys at Popular Mechanics.. I am heading out to a storage building to get some of those 1970's issues of the real Popular Mechanics to read.