Calendars Of Years Past

In January, the calendars in the mall will be deeply discounted. Fifty, seventy-five, even ninety percent. A calendar’s hard enough to sell after Christmas, but once the new year has started, you’re dead in the water. But, for some reason, old calendars remain online, managing to dodge the recycling bin year after year.

It’s kinda fucked up to see the Naked Straight Boys 2011 calendar, realizing that enough time has passed that they’re all dead by now. Same with the Playful Pigs 2010 calendar. They’re ham in 2014. Ham or dog food. Maybe there’s one or two pigs left, but they sure ain’t playful anymore.

The What Is Mr. Winkle? 2008 Calendar leaves us with the somber knowledge that we probably didn’t find out what Mr. Winkle was, or if we did, the answer wasn’t remarkable enough to last six years in our media-battered memories. I never found out who the Women Of Enchantment are, either, or why their 2004 calendar would be worth fifty bucks.

The pre-Y2K calendars are my favorite, as far as useless, outdated time-maps go. The 1999 Calendar of Wooden Boats, for example, was presumably made in preparation for the post-millennial world without internet, a flooded-earth scenario where the survivors would travel from island to island in hand-hewn boats at sunset. The 1999 Milestones Of Flight Calendar is a retrospective of what great heights we achieved, before the techno-plague wiped our silicon from the skies. And the Heavy Equipment 1998 Calendar showcased the end of our era of construction machinery. “This backhoe won’t work once the ‘puters get all broked!!” its cover screams, into the dying light of civilization.