Calendars: The End Of An Era

Bye to physical dates

Sitting in his armchair, he asks me for the umpteenth time if I have been able to get him a diary. I tell him no one prints diaries anymore. It sounds absurd to him that companies aren’t printing diaries.

She is on her bed, staring at a blank space on the wall. She has a faraway look on her face. It seems she is trying to recollect something, but I am not sure. Then she asks me what date it is.

Some years ago, she wouldn’t have had to ask me, because she would have had the new year’s calendar in her room. It was always hung on a part of a wall in front of her bed. That way, she could follow the days of the week and the months as they passed.

Once upon a time, we would always have piles of calendars from different companies. Funny enough, I also looked forward to receiving these calendars. They had vibrant, and interesting images or messages. There were those that showed activities in the company. There were others that had images about our culture and different cities in Nigeria. Calendars were another medium for education.

And when the year was over, they were used as a protective covering for textbooks and notebooks or lining for shelves.

As we get deeper into the age of technology, calendars are becoming or perhaps, have become extinct. For the Silent Generation(they’re the ones before the Baby Boomers), the absence of calendars may be a bleak reminder that their time is ending.