This is a story of my first lesson in the importance of proper proofreading and editing, and how quickly a manuscript can lose credibility when a reader is confronted with easily avoidable errors.“Moist Caverns” and “Man Tools”
When I was around 13 or 14, I discovered that nestled amongst the magazines on the stand at the Winn-Dixie grocery store, were four black romance/confession magazines—
Jive,
Black Confessions,
Bronze Thrills, and
Black Romance. (These publications were, in my words, an “urban imprint” for Sterling/Macfadden, publisher of the mainstream confession titles
True Confessions,
True Story, and
True Romance.) An avid reader who was suffering from a severe case of puberty, I found my little discovery quite intriguing, to say the least. It didn’t take long for me to realize the salaciousness that lay before me.
He plunged his man tool into my moist cavern…“Ma!!," hurrying excitedly, "can you buy this for me?”
My poor mother, I bugged her for at least several weeks to buy one of the magazines for me. It was the most important item in the world to me at the time. She was a tough nut to crack, as she wasn’t naïve, and knew all too well the type of stories they were. She shared her concerns that the material was inappropriate for me, and we'd go back and forth on how the stories weren't bad at all, and that I was indeed old enough to read them. I begged each Winn-Dixie visit. I still remember the night when she finally relented. I had been following her around the store holding one of the magazines, looking pitiful, of course. Knowing she’d say no, I wasted my breath again by asking if she’d buy it for me. She reviewed the cover for a moment, and then said yes! That, gentle readers, was one of the happiest moments of my teen years.
Bronze Thrills was finally coming home with me (I still have this issue by the way, February 1993). Finally, I was going to read stories about girls just a few years older than me who had boyfriends and were having sex with them; girls disobeying their parents to sneak around with neighborhood bad boys; women catching their husbands having affairs; love triangles; domestic violence; workplace infatuation—Yessssss!
And so my journey began. Soon I started a summer job and was able to buy my own magazines, and I continued to do for a number of years afterward. While I always found the material interesting, and usually had a favorite story in each issue, reading these magazines was an exercise in patience. The grammatical and typographical errors were so blatant that, in my opinion, it offended the intelligence of the readers.
"Errors"
Jennifer, are you telling us that a magazine went to press without anyone bothering to make sure it looked okay?Yes, I am. Where were the editors? I wondered. Did anyone on the payroll bother to even read one of the issues? Pure foolishness. In addition to suffering with misspelled words, missing words, and no spacing between words, imagine these other crimes against literature that faithful readers had to endure:
The "editors" in charge forced us to
· Attempt to understand text where there was either a misplacement or absence of quotation marks that rendered dialogue and the narrator’s inner thoughts indistinguishable.
· Re-read stories, as a story in one issue was sometimes a word-for-word reprint of one from a few issues back.
· Get to know a main character by one name, let's say “Nathan,” only to turn the page and find that his name had changed to “Mike.”
· Skim an issue's Table of Contents in the store, and become excited at a particular story's title and synopsis, only to get it home and discover that said story wasn’t even
in the issue. I'm not kidding. Table of Contents should never lie! (This happened to me twice, and I’m still mad about it.)
"Prisoners"
Before the internet, lonely hearts commonly sought love through classified ads in newspapers and magazines.
Black Romance and her sisters were no exception. When I would get a new issue, the first thing I would do is read the "Pen Pals" column in the back. Out of about 25 ads per issue, all but one would be from a prisoner seeking companionship.
"Ebony prince seeks princess for romance and marriage. I'm a writer, musician, and political activist. Will answer all. Roses for you, beautiful lady. Race and weight not important."
(Sidebar: Race and weight never seem to be a problem after all the options have been taken away. Come as you are, my queens. Funny, were they that accepting as free men?)
As an adult, I saw the ad of a guy I think I worked with at McDonalds years before when I was 16. This guy (when I knew him) had gold teeth, a jherri curl, and always wore a cow hide sun visor (of course, I had a crush on him). He had a very unique nickname, and this was the name I saw in the ad. When I saw that this individual was incarcerated in my home state, I was all but assured that he was indeed the same guy who shared fry duty with me and had gone on to make some bad choices. I used to wonder, and still do, how these men found out about these publications; was there some kind of network? I also felt some kind of way about these men possibly attempting to take advantage of lonely women. I'm sure my mother didn't know what to make of me. I was a weird one, I'm sure there were hardly any other teenage girls who found reading inmate personals ads entertaining.
"Conclusion"
Today, Sterling/Macfadden no longer publishes these black love-focused magazines. I think the
True magazines are still around though. I wasn’t sad to see them go. Aside from being older and not that into them anymore, I had lost respect for the company for not caring about the quality of this particular brand. It had gotten to the point where I no longer bothered to flip through them anymore. I had spent too many nights becoming engrossed in a story, only to be snatched from the fantasy because of an error that, had anyone cared to proofread it, could have easily been corrected. It's hard to enjoy a story when the journey to get to the end is choppy and misguided. Before abandoning these magazines, I had managed to collect over 30 of them. I have them stashed away here and there. I hope to keep them for a long time because I’m sentimental, but also because I want to pass them on to someone. Most teens/young women today wouldn't find much interest in a nearly 20-year-old romance magazine, but, if one of them is like me, would greatly appreciate the piece of history. Perhaps I'll find someone someday who will treasure them as I have, offensive errors and all.
I've rambled on enough. Now I'm off to go and finish up an earlier post I started in July.
--A nostalgic reader
