TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. - A Christmas card that bore a three-cent stamp on its first trip through the mail is still going strong, thanks to a little tape and a lasting friendship.

The card has been exchanged by Dick Rewalt and his friend from the Navy, Roy Stern, since 1953.

"We figure it's traveled about 75,000 miles," said Rewalt, who lives in Traverse City with his wife, Hedy.

The card has a picture of four snowmen on the front and tape holds it together at the creases. Inside, the original printed verse - "Happy hearts and happy homes are filled with old-time cheer/And it's time for two grand wishes: Merry Christmas! Glad New Year" - is surrounded by signatures and dates added by the two families over the years.

"You can see when the kids came along and then when they were growing up and leaving home," Rewalt told the Traverse City Record-Eagle.

Neither the Rewalts nor Stern and his wife, Betty, of Gonzales, La., expected the tradition to last this long.

"If we would've known that years ago, we would've bought a nicer card," Betty Stern said.

The men served in the Navy from 1952-56 and bunked together in New Orleans until Stern married Betty, a Louisiana native. The Sterns first sent the card to Rewalt in 1953, when both still lived in New Orleans.

Rewalt kept the card, then decided to send it to the Sterns before Christmas 1954 as a joke.

"I figured he would say, `You cheapskate. Can't you afford a card?'" Rewalt said.

Stern didn't remember his precise reaction.

"I probably just said, `Look what Dick did. I'll fix him. I'll send back the same card again.'"

Rewalt didn't hear back from Stern. He forgot about the card until he received it the following Christmas, and a tradition was born.