Pleasant Living Magazine

During my younger years, when the responsibilities and demands of life weren’t so pressing, winter was a great time for burying myself in books.  Even in elementary and junior high school, while I was pretending to study, my mother would discover that I had another, more interesting, book inside my math textbook. She was baffled by this, as she was not a reader and didn’t understand the pleasure, but she would laugh and remind me that I would fail math, which I did.

I hope you don’t have to read in secret, and I certainly don’t want you to fail at anything—but I recommend that you retreat from the pressures while the snow falls outside and bury yourself in some good reading—perhaps on our evolving website, where, piece by piece, we are reconstructing PL’s past. Since 1989, we’ve been cranking out a rich history of the River Country—essays, profiles, and features on everything from crows and buzzards to Williamsburg’s restoration. Although there is a score of collectors who have kept every issue since we began, much of PL’s editorial history from the early days will be lost unless we preserve it digitally, so we have begun the process of capturing the past online, issue by issue.

Right now, you can visit our growing archives and find the following issues of PL preserved in space:

Summer 1989, featuring Chesapeake Bay Preservation.  Find out what the perspective was 21 years ago.

Fall 1989, featuring an inside look at the deluge of growth in Gloucester County.

Winter 1990, featuring a “Northern Necker in Old Town Fredericksburg” – a narrative tour of one of the most interesting small towns in River Country.

Spring 1990, featuring “Williamsburg, A Study in Contrasts” and Stratford Hall’s Glamorous Coaching Day – 20 years ago!

You’ll note that our covers for these issues are in color – long before PL’s shift to our new brand of black and white.

Currently, our archives are available to the public, but in the coming months, we will be restricting our archives to Preferred Readers only.  We hope you’ll become a Preferred Reader so you can enjoy this journey through the past.

Here’s the link to our archives.  Stay inside and enjoy!

Robert Pruett, Publisher

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• • New features, profiles and news you won't find in our print version. Here are a few examples!

For those of you who have subscribed to PL over recent months, we've made a change. Although we intended to continue the practice of issuing membership cards to our subscribers/Preferred Readers, we have decided to discontinue the cards. They proved to be impractical for a number of reasons we won't detail here.

This spring, we will begin offering the option to print discount coupons on our website for discounts offered by participating businesses, to which only Preferred Readers will have access. In addition to this new benefit, our Preferred Readers will still enjoy home delivery of PL by mail, our monthly e-newsletter featuring special content and discounts from our advertisers, and access to our Reader Forum and Publisher's Blog. With copies disappearing so quickly from newsstands throughout the River Country, we've had a score of subscribers letting us know how much they enjoy receiving their copy by mail.

Here are 16 PL Preferred Merchants who are offering surprising discounts to PL subscribers with coupons this spring. With just one purchase from any of these participating businesses, your subscription can be paid for!

Easy Livin’ Casual Furniture

10% discount off all purchases of $100 or more. Not valid with any other discount. Offer valid until 4/1/10.
16273 General Puller Hwy, Deltaville, VA 23043

J&W Seafood of VA, Inc.

10% discount on purchases of $100 or more. Offer valid until 4/1/10.
16552 General Puller Hwy, Deltaville, VA 23043
www.jandwseafoodonline.com