Tom Hamilton of Mora, Minn., turns 80 on June 7, but his best gift arrived last Thursday. It was a birthday card from his sister-in-law, Madolyn Mann, who lives in Pharr, Texas.
"Happy Birthday to a good-looking relative," the card says. The inside inscription reads: "Save this card. You can send it to me on my birthday."
Be careful what you wish for.
Hamilton and Mann, who turned 79 on May 7, have sent this very birthday card back and forth since 1975, when a postage stamp cost 10 cents. After 73 trips through the U.S. mail, the gently taped-together card from Hallmark's "contemporary" line looks pretty good. Hamilton, a cancer survivor, does, too. "I can still touch my toes," he said.
Hamilton and his wife of 60 years, Gwen, never imagined their little joke would go this far. "I had no idea it would keep going," said Gwen, who is Mann's sister. "It's just continued and continued. One year I thought that I had lost it and I was just sick about it. We can't lose that card!" She found it tucked behind some other papers, and off it went.
Over the years, the sisters have documented in neat cursive hand-writing the card's arrival in Texas in May and in Minnesota in June, under the heading, "Card History."
"Tom has horrible handwriting," Gwen said. "I would never let him do it."
"I'm like the guys who signed the Constitution," Tom agreed. "Can't read any of it."
