Country Singles
If you're looking for love in all the wrong places — those being places that don't have members of the opposite sex who are into country music, NASCAR, fishing, hugging and light Christianity — then Country Singles is the newspaper for you. Country Singles is a personal ad-land in which all the men are rugged, stout outdoorsmen, and often so are the women; truckers may or may not want you to join them on the road and personal ads end with the phrase, "no inmates," even if the ad buyers themselves are prisoners looking for a hand to hold onto and a place to crash when their sentence runs out. Most are still hoping for true love, but being a little older and having been knocked around a bit, either aren't as fussy about the particulars, or are cement-sure of what they want.
CENTRAL SOUTH DAKOTA
Seeking male lifemate (40-60, race or looks not important) to laugh with, work with, make passionate love with, and, when necessary, cry with. DWPF, 5', full figured, cute, 51, look/feel younger. Willing to relocate.
Country Singles has a website, but the monthly's natural environment is as a $1 impulse buy along some of the finer interstate rest stops of Iowa, Minnesota,
South Dakota, Missouri and Wisconsin. It used to be in more racks, but as explained in the July issue, cost cuts have forced the 8,000-mile-a-month route down to 6,000 miles, and eliminated newsracks in small towns off the four-lane, clover-leafed path, although the paper is vigorously fighting the US government in court to allow it keep its rack outside the Fargo, N.D., post office. That rack was removed in May because of a "temporary security problem." Apparently
the Office of Homeland Security figures terrorists' next stop is planting bombs in boxes for newspapers featuring full-page ads for "Christian Ladies Worldwide." ("Don't Confine Yourself to Any One Country!")
The editor, publisher and founder of Country Singles is the hirsute Harlan L. Jacobsen of Sioux Falls, S.D., self-described as having been divorced twice and single for 30 years. He's had a similar publication in Arizona for 28 years (the "Oldest Singles Newspaper," according to him), and he's hosted dances and singles classes there, as well. If that doesn't work out, Jacobsen, according to a profile of his son the Scientologist critic, can sell you adult videos from his chain of stores in South Dakota. (Not to mention,
Jacobsen also owns various farm and weather publications and websites. He's the Rupert Murdoch of the lonely and dirt-intensive.)
Jacobsen knows that there's an audience of folks not looking for the kind of
people-advertising featured in your local alt-weekly, and also aren't
looking there because they don't live anywhere near a local alt-weekly — heck, many of them are lucky to have a local weekly of any kind.
ANYWHERE USA
ISO S/DF, between 23-43, good looking, free to travel months at a time. Desire to learn to drive tractor trailer out of South Dakota throughout USA. ... Enjoy
dining out, audio books, classic rock, country music, 4-wheelers, Mustangs, hiking, cameras, and picture taking, making love as much as possible. ... I'm a DWM, 44, 5'8", 170 lbs., blue eyes, brown hair (touch of gray), smoker, trying to quit, and take pleasure in pleasing and treating a woman for the Princess she is, always with a smile. Please no slobs or overweights, inmates, cons, hookers, drunks, or drug users. Must have valid drivers license.
Jacobsen, like any hairy country guy you'd see in a pickup truck ad, appears to be a graduate of that mythical School of Hard Knocks. According to his bio,
"After great difficulty handling divorce, he attended meetings and seminars, with 10 years of research and study on the subject of learning what works in life as a single person. He does not have a degree in anything. There is no degree in the study of 'living successfully' as a single person." However, he has various web sites — DivorceRecovery101.com,
SingleLifeCoach.com, SinglesTalkShop.com — where you apparently can learn how not to screw up. Or how not to give up on what you want, even if you're a middle-aged person living among more livestock than people.
ANYWHERE RELOCATABLE
Good looking WM, 49, 5'10", 265 lbs., clean, cleancut, drug and VD-free, smoker, occasional social drinker or non-drinker. Enjoys romance, passion and doing various fun activities together. I would like to hear from any single, divorced or white female, 280 lbs. to 400 lbs., for serious long term relationship. Homeowner a plus.
What comes clear in reading the ads in Country Singles, indeed, is the power of the ideal of finding your true love, your soulmate, no matter where you live, no matter your shape, age or preference in bait. Sure, a producer from the upcoming "Rob Nelson Show" may post a note on the website's forum, figuring this a good place to find people who have been married four
or five times in hopes of mocking them without their knowledge. Those city slickers figure that if you don't find love, you go to a trendy bar with your
friends and bitch over whatever mixed drink is popular at the moment. In the country, you get back on the saddle. Or if you've never gotten on the saddle, you keep trying to get on it.
SOUTH CENTRAL MINNESOTA
DWF, 39, 250#, 5'8'', brown hair, brown eyes, no kids, drug-disease-alcohol free. Boating, music, dancing, hugs, kiss, being close, caring, loving, cuddling, sense of humor, LTR. Someone who knows how to smile, a
man that is willing to work hard at his relationship, regardless what his past has been. Send photo.
— Bob Cook (bobc@flakmag.com)
