So, what’s changed about ‘The Old Farmer’s Almanac?’

Either it has changed or I have. I’m talking about The Old Farmer’s Almanac. I’ve purchased a copy every autumn for the past 40 years and to all appearances, it’s the same book it ever was. Same yellow cover, same weather forecasts, same advertisements, same folksy humor.

It’s the one thing in my life that remains the same, while everything else around me changes. It’s comforting; a cozy relic of a simpler era; an era I perceive as simpler, anyway.

But for the past few years, I’ve felt differently about it. I first encountered the Almanac at my grandmother’s house, Christmastime, 1977. A copy was sitting on the coffee table. I was immediately taken with its “old-timey” look and content.

Planting tables, best times to harvest, fish and hang out laundry. In-depth articles on the mating habits of the Smooth-toothed Pocket Gopher. A cornucopia of useless information I would never, ever need in real life unless I wound up as a contestant on Jeopardy. Naturally, I wanted more.

My grandmother dug out several dog-eared copies from previous years and gave them to me. I was hooked. I’ve bought a copy every year since.

The best part of the Almanac for me, or at least the most entertaining, was always the advertisements. If you’ve ever read the Almanac yourself, you know what I’m talking about.

There are ads for clairvoyants, ridiculously extravagant gardening equipment, ultrasonic bat eradicators, voodoo curse removal services, Viagra alternatives that promise miraculous results, even on nights you’d rather just watch reruns of “Murder She Wrote” and go to bed … the list goes on. Even the more “mainstream” ads are pretty hilarious. Or, rather, they used to be.

Like the Jitterbug. If you don’t remember the Kennedy administration, chances are you have no idea what a Jitterbug even is. Well, kids, it’s a phone. A phone for geezers. It features a tiny screen with B-I-G text and buttons the size of a helicopter landing pad. It offers an optional “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” emergency feature.

Basically, it’s a phone even a millennial (as in the past, rather than current, millennium) might be able to figure out. It’s a phone your adult kids gift you for Christmas so they can call once a week to find out if it’s time yet to put your Hummel collection up for sale on Ebay.

There are no contracts with the Jitterbug. I guess the manufacturer figured most Jitterbug users would be dead before the contract expired anyway.

The Jitterbug is the polar opposite of the latest iPhone. I used to think the ads for it were a riot! These days, as I reach for my reading glasses every time my daughter texts me, it seems a bit less funny. Maybe even, I dunno, attractive? There’s a certain nostalgic aspect to the Jitterbug; it reminds me of my first flip phone, the one I owned back before electricity and indoor plumbing.

Then there are all the miracle liniments, ointments and unguents. All guaranteed to make my knees stop hurting. They look like something that might have been sold from the back of a covered wagon in Dodge City, circa 1870 by a guy wearing a plaid suit and porkpie hat. Funny? You bet, at least until a few years ago, when my knees started hurting after every bike ride.

Now? Well, nothing else seems to be working; a bottle of snake oil might be just the thing. (There’s actually an article on the history of snake oil in this year’s edition of the Almanac; whatever else, the editors know their audience.)

Then, of course, there are ads for hair loss treatments, hernia-fixing underwear, weather-watching calendars and memory loss reversal techniques. All of which once made me laugh fit to split. These days the only thing that prevents me from calling in an order are the tiny, virtual buttons on my iPhone.

I dunno, maybe the Almanac hasn’t really changed much in the past 40 years. But for some reason, it seems a lot more relevant.

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