Dates & More

Sometime during December of 1974, I stopped in the Hallmark store on Fifth Avenue and 56th Street. I loved card stores and buying cards and this store was beautiful with a circular stairway leading to a lower level. I must have purchased something because I was given their complimentary date book. On the cover was a Precious Moments drawing and the back had the address of the store.

I started to use it to mark down friends’ and family’s birthdays and then to write down appointments and dates. Somewhere down the line, I used it as a sort of quick journal…jotting a few words on what happened that particular day…lunch with a friend…a chat on the phone …even basic things like what I ate or what I bought.

When December of 1975 rolled around, I went back to the same store and got another date book. I did this for 12 years…determined to get the date book from the same Hallmark Store. December of 1987, I was working at the World Trade Center and there was a perfectly good Hallmark store in the concourse. I also had a 2 year old and no time to get to 5th Avenue. I relented and finally broke the chain. After that, it didn't matter where I got the date book - as long as I got one.

To date, I have 35 of them. I don't even know when they started printing them. But from some research, it seems that Hallmark has had these date books since at least the 1940’s. So my collection is just a drop in the bucket by comparison.

But I have 34 years of memories, events - big and small, birthdays, passings and simple moments recorded in these little books. At any moment, I can scan through and find exactly what date I pass my road test or when I discovered I was pregnant. Or when I first met a new friend who is now an old friend.

Christmas card - $3.50
Hallmark Date Book - Free
Entries - Priceless