CLEARCREEK TWP., Warren County — Irwin Kahn is still honing the tone of sarcastic comments he'll add to the birthday card he and his little brother have been exchanging for 37 years.

Next month, Kahn, 70, of Clearcreek Twp. will return the card, which sold for 25 cents in 1969, to his brother, Jerry, for the 38th time, in recognition of his 69th birthday.

"You might think we're the pioneers, one of the early people who believed in recycling," Jerry Kahn said in a phone interview from Ormond Beach, Fla.

Jerry, who moved from Cincinnati to Florida in 1984, estimated the card has traveled 100,000 miles through the mail from his home to Irwin's in Warren County.

With each year, "it becomes more precious, more of an heirloom,"" Jerry said. "The card becomes an expectation."

He laminated its outside surfaces, marked with the 74 dates and initials tracing its path, begun in July 1969, when Irwin, then living in Middletown, first sent "Birthday Wishes, Brother," to his little brother, then living in Cincinnati.

In 1983, Irwin's wife, Sondra, and her sister, Judy, took up the ritual — until Judy's death in 2000.

Now living off Ohio 73, Sondra and Irwin also reuse anniversary, Christmas and other greeting cards.

"I just tell her ... She's not worth spending the money on," Irwin said, with a comic smirk and tip of a Honduran cigar, ala Groucho Marx.

While enjoying their retirement, both brothers joked about the frugality and durability — demonstrated by the card custom.

"This card is 37 years old — Amazing!" Jerry concluded his note recognizing Irwin's 70th birthday on Aug. 2, on a post-it stuck to the inside left page.

"It hasn't been lost in the mail," said Irwin, who will replace the post-it with one bearing his latest cracks before sending it off again.

The card's inside left is the only surface free from lamination or unmarked by the string of initialed dates.

The initialed dates take up most of the space above and below the inside greeting, which concludes:

"A year that stands out as your finest, and then, many happy returns of the day!"

Irwin, a retired office furniture dealer and part-time Butler County sheriff's deputy, is himself a card.

In addition to his brief remarks, he's begun searching for a suitable envelope in anticipation of his little brother's birthday on Feb. 23.

While continuing the ritual, the brothers have arrived at one optimistic alteration designed to preserve space for decades of future dates. "We're gonna write smaller," Irwin said.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2261 or lbudd@DaytonDailyNews.com.