you must be 18 years or older to read this blog post

it's not much fun to click the pic when there's only one.

Small purple flower.

Ahhhh, the 60s, a unique time in American culture that may never be repeated .... Or at least I hope not. But whether it was good or bad, one thing is for sure; magazines were a big part of it. There were a lot of magazines promoting drugs and a lot were writing about rock 'n' roll music, but I believe the magazines for guys my age that will forever be associated with the 60s and 70s without a doubt has to be Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler.

Those magazines were as much a part of military life at that period of time as marching and mess halls. A lot of G.I.s were broke most of the time, which wasn't hard to do when you're making $30 a week and supporting a drinking problem; and they often didn't have the meager amount it took to buy a Playboy magazine, even at B.X. prices, so the magazines got passed around from G.I. to G.I. usually with the centerfold messing.

Some newer G.I.s hung the centerfold on their locker door and tried to pass it off as a picture of their girlfriend, but we old-timers knew that most girls don't actually have staple holes in their naval and were not fooled for a second.

But most of us tried to fool ourselves into thinking that a smoking jacket, a pipe, and a brandy snifter made us look exactly like Hugh Hefner as he relaxed around the Playboy mansion. And since we were in Japan, smoking jackets, pipes, and brandy were dirt cheap for us G.I.s, so we all had that look as we lounged around the barracks trying to look as sophisticated and cultured as possible, while discussing the proper way to hold a brandy snifter, and the only thing missing from our imaginary life was wealth, prestige, fame, the Playboy mansion, and girls.

It's hard for me to imagine military life without thinking of those three magazines. They were lying all over the barracks, the break rooms where we worked, and the airplanes we were loading. They were as much a part of my military service as khakis and green fatigues. I guess it's different now, which is what you could expect when guys aren't even sure they're guys anymore.

I somehow look back on those times as the "good old days" even though there wasn't much good about them except the day your four year hitch was up and you heard your discharge papers were waiting in the orderly room.

I'm not quite done yet, but I'm out of the Air Force in my next blog post and exposed to a whole new world of magazines, mostly hobbys, that I couldn't afford while in the Air Force.

Theboondork