The "An Early Christmas Gift Well Received" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Just opened an early Christmas present that was given to me by my dear wife.  For the past several years she has given me a membership to LancasterHistory.org.  
LancasterHistory.org is a local-history museum featuring exhibitions, a Research Center, arboretum and tours of President James Buchanan's Wheatland.  I make quite a few visits on a yearly basis in order to do research or take photograph for this blog.  And, without a membership, it would be rather costly.  So a couple of years ago my wife, Carol, asked if I would like a membership at LancasterHistory.org.  What a neat idea I told her.  So, every year since then I receive my yearly membership to LancasterHistory.org.  In the mail today I received my new membership card and a congratulation notice for LancasaterHistory.org once again.

 The letter that accompanied the membership card told me they are working hard to provide me with access to history from home.  I will find a growing list of resources on their website from online exhibitions and teaching tools to articles, videos and blogs about their collections.  Their staff is working to develop new ways to educate and entertain me with the rich history of Lancaster.  I must admit that quite a few of my stories I have written for this blog were researched at LancasterHistory.org.  At the bottom of the trip-folded letter was my new yearly membership card.  My wife examined the card and said, "This card is good from 12/3/2020 to 3/16/2022.  Wow!  I had read that they may extend the membership card due to having to be closed for a few months this year, and they kept their word.  But, what I was most impressed with was the actual card that was at the bottom of the letter.  It wasn't on paper, even heavy paper.  It was printed on a light-weight plastic.  

You can see the narrow strip of tape holding the bottom
1/3 of the letter in place.  You can also see
how the card can be released from the plastic sheet.

The entire bottom third of the letter was a piece of plastic.  And then, I saw the extremely tiny lettering in the bottom left corner of that one-third plastic page which read: Manufactured using technology discussed in patent number 7,618,034 & 8,066,271.  The actual membership card was a thin plastic that was die-cut so when I pushed on it, it popped out of the plastic.  Pretty neat.  And, since I taught graphic arts in high school for almost 35 years, I was really impressed with the technology that was used to prepare this card for me.  Actually the bottom-third of the letter was taped in place with a piece of cellophane tape about 3/8" wide.  And, I'm sure it was done mechanically and not by someone sitting down and pasting it on by hand.  The 1/3 page had the name on it of "REALCARD".  I thanked my wife for the really neat present once again and punched out the card to put in my wallet.  For now I can only visit LancasterHistory.org at www.lancasterhistory.org.  Hopefully I will soon be able to physically make visits to the museum in person.  But, safety is the best medicine at present to keep all members of LancasterHistory.org healthy.  Hope all of you get as nice a holiday gift as I did from my wife with my new membership card.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.