Yesterday I was thinking about traditions and such. It was then I remembered something else that seems to be missing from the holiday season. Calendars ! That's right calendars. I was talking with Mom and she was saying how she needed to go buy a new calendar. You know being 88 she doesn't use hardly anything in the way of electronics. Every year she takes the birthdays and doctors appointments off her old calendar and transcribes them to the new. She was wondering where to go to buy one. I told her Walmart or any of the various dollar stores. That is when we began to reminisce about getting all those free calendars every year. If you are a baby boomer I'm certain you remember. Every business in town handed them out. All the salesmen handed them out as well. I know that some still do, but they are getting far and few between.
I worked at a company that manufactured road flares some years back. I was a maintenance mechanic and worked in the machine shop. One of the suppliers would hand out those " special " calendars for the guys. All I can say is the girls didn't dress like that in any machine shop I ever worked in. I can't say with certainty the year it happened but I do remember him coming in and handing out a calendar that just had machinery on it ! What ? Yes, his company would no longer distribute those " special ' calendars. It was the first example of political correctness I can recall. I guess on the bright side we still got a free calendar. I can remember having calendars from a lot of stores in town. They would have various scenes on the top and be quite large. Every once in a while a business would try to change it up and hand out pocket calendars or small books. Well, getting a calendar for the new year was never an issue back then, that much is certain.
I'm sure there are people out there that collect calendars. I kinda wished I had saved a few myself. It would be fun to look at the old ones advertising businesses that no longer exist. That calendar would be accurate every 28 years, day for day. Pretty cool huh. So, if you had a calendar from 1990 it would be fine in 2018. Where were you in 1990 ? I was here in Greensboro. Our pharmacy still gives out calendars, at least I think they do. If I had one from 1962 that would still work and I would have been 9 years old. That calendar may have said, Percy Schenck on it ! It could have been the East Hampton Lumber Company just as well, Frank Smith proprietor. Yeah, that would be kinda neat. Of course it is a long time between uses but you could adjust by year as well. It gets complicated but depending on how a leap year causes a day to be skipped the calendar will repeat every 5,6, or 11 years or 28 years in the case of a leap year itself ! I know I had to read that several times myself to understand it. Anyway, the point is you could use those calendars over again. Once you have a full collection of 28 you would never need another ! Now that would be frugal ! Especially so when those calendars are free.
Well whatever the case may be I will start looking for those free calendars. It will interesting to see how many are still being handed out. I'm thinking that may be becoming a thing of the past. When was the last time you got a free toaster for opening a checking account ? Or maybe you got some silverware with your last fill-up ? I do remember seeing those big old calendars hanging on the wall. I also remember the calendars that would be found in the men's room at the gas stations ! Ah, the good old days. There was one garage in particular " Peckhams " if memory serves that used those calendars for wallpaper. A boy could get a ten cent bottle of coke from the machine creating a need to use the bathroom. Then, turn the bottle back in for a two cent deposit. A bottle of coke, an education and a two cent return. Life doesn't get much better than that. Yes sir, had to check the calendar every time I went by " Peckhams " garage, I was always on a tight schedule.
I worked at a company that manufactured road flares some years back. I was a maintenance mechanic and worked in the machine shop. One of the suppliers would hand out those " special " calendars for the guys. All I can say is the girls didn't dress like that in any machine shop I ever worked in. I can't say with certainty the year it happened but I do remember him coming in and handing out a calendar that just had machinery on it ! What ? Yes, his company would no longer distribute those " special ' calendars. It was the first example of political correctness I can recall. I guess on the bright side we still got a free calendar. I can remember having calendars from a lot of stores in town. They would have various scenes on the top and be quite large. Every once in a while a business would try to change it up and hand out pocket calendars or small books. Well, getting a calendar for the new year was never an issue back then, that much is certain.
I'm sure there are people out there that collect calendars. I kinda wished I had saved a few myself. It would be fun to look at the old ones advertising businesses that no longer exist. That calendar would be accurate every 28 years, day for day. Pretty cool huh. So, if you had a calendar from 1990 it would be fine in 2018. Where were you in 1990 ? I was here in Greensboro. Our pharmacy still gives out calendars, at least I think they do. If I had one from 1962 that would still work and I would have been 9 years old. That calendar may have said, Percy Schenck on it ! It could have been the East Hampton Lumber Company just as well, Frank Smith proprietor. Yeah, that would be kinda neat. Of course it is a long time between uses but you could adjust by year as well. It gets complicated but depending on how a leap year causes a day to be skipped the calendar will repeat every 5,6, or 11 years or 28 years in the case of a leap year itself ! I know I had to read that several times myself to understand it. Anyway, the point is you could use those calendars over again. Once you have a full collection of 28 you would never need another ! Now that would be frugal ! Especially so when those calendars are free.
Well whatever the case may be I will start looking for those free calendars. It will interesting to see how many are still being handed out. I'm thinking that may be becoming a thing of the past. When was the last time you got a free toaster for opening a checking account ? Or maybe you got some silverware with your last fill-up ? I do remember seeing those big old calendars hanging on the wall. I also remember the calendars that would be found in the men's room at the gas stations ! Ah, the good old days. There was one garage in particular " Peckhams " if memory serves that used those calendars for wallpaper. A boy could get a ten cent bottle of coke from the machine creating a need to use the bathroom. Then, turn the bottle back in for a two cent deposit. A bottle of coke, an education and a two cent return. Life doesn't get much better than that. Yes sir, had to check the calendar every time I went by " Peckhams " garage, I was always on a tight schedule.
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