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Friends have exchanged same birthday card for 50 years By Nathan Howes OAKVILLE BEAVER STAFF 11 · Thursday, July 1, 2010 OAKVILLE BEAVER · www.oakvillebeaver.com N ancy Villemarie and Marlie McFarlane were `green' long before it was fashionable. For 50 years the two women have been recycling the same birthday card, signing and sending it back and forth. This month the card went to Villemaire, who celebrated her birthday on Tuesday. In the all the years Villemaire and McFarlane have been sending the card to each other, they have only missed one year. "It actually got put in a drawer and we forgot about it and then we had to bring it up to date once," said Villemaire. "We took a lot of kidding from our husbands about that." Because McFarlane lives in Burlington and Villemaire lives in Oakville, they rarely had to send it through the mail, if at all. They usually give it to each other in person. "We don't always send it back and forth through the mail. We might have done that at the start, but now we usually just give it to each other on our birthdays," said Villemaire. "I don't think we ever really mailed it, now that I look back. I have the original envelope. We were afraid of it getting lost," BRIAN VILLEMARIE / SPECIAL TO THE BEAVER FIFTY YEARS AND COUNTING: Marlie McFarlane and Nancy Villemarie with the birthday card they have exchanged to each other for the past 50 years. said McFarlane. When they originally bought the card, it only cost them 25 cents. The price of cards has gone up considerably since then. The price for birthday cards may have changed, but the marketing for them hasn't. Even 50 years ago, novelty cards were effective in catching people's attention and sell the product. "When we were young kids, maybe around 10 or so, we decided one day to buy a card. This card said something about sending it back and forth, and we started doing that," said Villemaire. "There's a penny on the card and it says `paste the penny on the card and mail it back today.' We just said, `hey we should do that!' So we started doing it. We've done that for 50 years now." With around 100 signatures on the card, one would think it would be time for a new card to replace this one. They might have to after next year. "We've almost used up the whole card. We've written small, but we've used the entire inside. I think there's only room for a couple more signatures and that's it," said Villemaire. McFarlane will receive the card again next year on April 9. Oakville Generating Station Meeting and Exceeding Environmental Standards 1.866.317.9887 oakville@transcanada.com www.transcanada.com/oakville View of Oakville Generating Station from Royal Windsor Drive