Thursday, March 22, 2012

From The Archives 15

It's been a while since I've put up a "From the Archives" post. This one comes from the dawn of time and is something of a super geeky origin story as well. Below is one of the first professional bits of writing I ever did -- professional in the sense that I received money for something I wrote.


The piece comes from the January 1980 issue of Boy's Life magazine, the magazine for Boy Scouts of America, of which I was one. This issue came out when I was in Junior High School and all of thirteen years old. It was a tiny tidbit that was part of the monthly "Stamps and Coins" column. I actually wrote a number of these which saw print, and am not sure if this is actually the first one I contributed. It's the only one I could find though.

Yes, it was an unassuming, humble beginning, but I applaud the editors for encouraging kids to research and submit these little entries by paying them for the work. It was the first money I'd earned that didn't involve yard work or washing dishes, and while $5.00 doesn't seem like a lot now, back then I could buy two books or a record for that money.

So, without further ado, here's my contribution to the January 1980 "Stamps and Coins" for Boy's Life.


I like to think I've improved since then.

4 comments:

Shawn Robare said...

Did you know that Google has scans of these available freely in their magazine reader?

http://books.google.com/books/serial/ISSN:00068608?rview=1&lr=&sa=N&start=360

I've been flipping through them recently looking for fun advertisements to talk about on Branded. Anyway, pretty cool that you were contributing at that age!

John Rozum said...

Thanks, Shawn. I'll have to look through those.

SCARCEXL said...

I discovered last year that they puboished also some very good stuff, like their litterature classics adaptations by comics pro like Ernie Colon (you can see some exemples here: http://erniecolonunlimited.blogspot.fr/search/label/-Boy%27s%20Life
I don't know if there has been others comics contributions worthwhile?

Stephen said...

Funny, Google Books was the first place I went to find more from John in Boys' Life:

http://tinyurl.com/boyslifejohnrozum

My sons get that magazine, and my car is filled with them!