2 Brothers Recycle Birthday Card

Glendell Smith should be able to recite word-for-word the greeting on one of the birthday cards he expects to get for his 63rd birthday Thursday.

After all, the card has been showing up each year for 42 years.

His brother, Everett, 65, who lived in El Paso and worked as a barber, first sent Glendell the card in 1964. Everett bought it for 15 cents and mailed it for a nickel.

Glendell, who was a student at McMurry University in Abilene at the time, mailed it back for Everett's birthday in February 1965.

"Where have I seen this card before?" Everett recalled asking himself.

The answer was simple.

"Glendell was always kind of a joker," Everett told the Abilene Reporter-News in Thursday's editions.

The brothers have always added messages to the card, which is now laminated. When there was no more space, they added handwritten notes. Now, there are six small note pages attached.

And they've only had one major scare.

In 1998, Glendell didn't include an apartment number when he mailed the card to El Paso. The card came back 10 days later. Glendell, still a coach and teacher in Amarillo, delivered it by hand a short time later.

"I almost cried when I saw the card," Everett told the newspaper. "I thought it was gone forever."