Get a globe, puzzle or map this weekend when National Geographic rolls a truck into Seattle with goodies for sale.
Maybe that three-foot-high stack of National Geographic magazines in the garage is enough of a memory. For many folks, National Geographic, with its distinctive yellow border, was the first magazine that introduced its readers to the world.
Darla Lehman of Everett bought her father a National Geographic globe six years ago that twirled around and displayed the positions of constellations for certain longitudes and latitudes. As a single parent, she said she had never been able to afford something expensive for her hard-to-shop-for father.
“I lost my Dad two years ago, and it was a comfort to find that thing among his keepsakes, in his treasured possessions, and to know he liked it, and used it,” Lehman, 51, said. “When I think of National Geographic I remember the pleasure it gave me to give my Dad something different.”
Georgia Malinsky’s family would buy National Geographic magazines at yard sales.
“This was an adult magazine with pictures and stories from around the world,” the Monroe woman said. “Each edition I opened took me to a new place and exposed me to people living in different and exciting cultures. I can remember how bizarre and foreign these people’s habits and ways of life seemed to me and how intrigued I was by the stories of expeditions to the ends of the Earth.”
In school in her rural community, National Geographic was a good place to start researching reports.
“I now have an insatiable appetite for seeing firsthand the places, people and things I’ve read about over the years,” Malinsky said. “Most days now find me daydreaming of visiting these far-off places. And I plan very carefully how and where to use my three weeks of vacation each year.”
Able to take his children traveling, National Geographic was a useful pre-trip tool, said Bob Knight, 71, from Snohomish. He became a reader at an early age and subscribed to the magazine for about 20 years, lining them up in rows in the garage.
“As our two children were growing up we were fortunate to be able to travel both in the United States and Europe,” Knight said. “Before going some place we would browse through the indexes to see where we could locate articles and pictures about our destinations.”
Knight said he doesn’t doubt that the love he has for photography came from studying the craftsmanship of the National Geographic photographers.
The magazine opened a window to the world for Linda Paz, executive director of Matthew House in Monroe. She spent hours looking through the magazine when she was a kid.
“It was a child’s ticket to places that I would probably never in reality ever get to visit,” the 56-year-old Snohomish woman said.
“It opened a whole window to the world that as I grew up made my knowledge of other places and cultures so important in forming within me who I was to become as an adult.
“Working today with hundreds and hundreds of families has placed me in a position of understanding so many different ethnic cultures and people, and I am sure a large part of that came from the hours I spend with my nose in the National Geographic.”
I wonder if anyone ever calculated how many times a National Geographic magazine changed hands. Carolyn Barkley, 59, of Marysville said she shared them with neighbors.
“But I never part with the maps in this ever changing world,” Barkley said. “I fell in love with polar bears and pandas from their pictures. Do you suppose that’s why I have a black and white dog? He is my little panda.”
Armchair travelers can buy maps, globes, videos, toys, clothing, luggage and books at the Seattle warehouse sale, planned for noon-8 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, 800 Convention Place, Seattle.
“Thousands of people attend our warehouse sales, so they are really the largest events that the Society conducts,” said National Geographic’s Steve Hubbard, director of operations.
“With the huge range of merchandise, from candles to calendars, puzzles to pendants, talking microscopes to travel accessories, buyers should be able to find perfect gifts for everyone on their list.”
As a child at the home of relatives, Marilyn Gabelein of Clinton remembers pictures of naked natives from around the world. Having grown up in the farmland of North Dakota, looking at those pictures in that magazine was pretty risque, she said.
“It was later in life, married, with children, that we received our first subscription to the magazine,” Gabelein, 58, said. “It came in the form of a Christmas present to my husband, from a good friend of his.
“Our children grew up looking at pictures, maps and articles and using it for school reports and projects. I would say we have had a subscription for over 25 years, and we have more than one stack of them at our house.”
Gabelein said the magazine is hard to throw away.
Remember that if you load up at the sale.
Columnist Kristi O’Harran: 425-339-3451 or oharran@ heraldnet.com.
National Geographic sale
Buy maps, globes, videos, toys, clothing, luggage and books at the National Geographic Society’s Seattle warehouse sale, noon to 8 p.m. Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center, 800 Convention Place, Seattle.
The National Geographic Society will have a warehouse sale in Seattle this weekend.
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