While many people read greeting cards over cake and ice cream and presents, Wayne Nemitz writes them.

He writes about saying thank you and about getting well soon and about turning another year older.

He writes about Christmas and about God and about friendship.

And, of course, he writes about love.

“I think it’s a good idea to remember somebody,” he says.

For the past 40 years, Nemitz has been writing greeting cards, many of them funny, and estimates he sold roughly 700 ideas as a freelancer from 1969 through 1998.

The Austin resident still writes cards for his family and his friends and sends out 100 of them, complete with his own illustrations, every Christmas.

“I always had a sense of humor; I got that from my dad,” he says. “And my art talent was a gift from God, so I thank him for that.”

Nemitz was born in Austin, started drawing in the fourth grade and recognized his talent a year later when his teacher, Ruby Rupner, gave him a compliment.

“She put my drawing up and encouraged me,” he says.

Nemitz left Austin when he got married in 1955, then headed to Iowa where he discovered the world of writing for greeting card companies and getting paid for them.

He balanced a full-time job with his new hobby.

“A friend of mine told me he was doing it and remembered my humor and art ability and thought that would make a perfect match,” Nemitz says.

While Nemitz always sent in his illustrations with his ideas, it was his writing that was purchased.

Some ideas would fetch $50, while others would get as much as $150.

“I would send a dozen at a time, maybe every other day,” he says.

He also got his share of rejection letters because, “you always do that.”

One of his ideas showed an upside down turtle on the front of the card, and when opened up, displayed a right side up turtle on the inside, complete with the words, “thank you.”

He sold his ideas to Argus and to Hallmark and to Gibson card companies to name a few, with some sending samples of the final product.

The illustrator of the final cards, which was never Nemitz, usually received written credit on the product, with Nemitz getting some money and acceptance letters for his work.

The 73-year-old, who loves sports and music and used to dance with his wife at the Terp Ballroom, says he first wrote cards with a “put down” sense of humor before writing ideas that had a more positive message.

“Early on, I discovered I had a sharp “put down” sense of humor,” he says. “But I realized cheering someone up sold more.”

“You’ll be out of that hospital bed in no time … they’re having a fire drill today,” one of his cards reads.

On July 24, 1981, Nemitz sold 12 ideas at once to Hallmark for a mouse-themed project the famed card maker was starting.

“I almouse forgot your birthday,” was among them, as was “Give me all your hugs and all your kisses … and all your cheese.”

“A short puch line is the key,” Nemitz says to writing cards. “You don’t want a lot of words on the inside.”

While Nemitz no longer sells his ideas, he still sends his cards off to his friends and family.

Signe and Ken Carlson of Austin have been receiving cards from Nemitz for decades.

Nemitz and Ken Carlson worked at a Hormel Foods plant in Iowa together.

“The kinds of cards he makes are really cute and clever,” Ken Carlson says. “He’s just the type of person you want to be around,” Signe Carlson adds.

As for Nemitz, who turns 74 this summer, there’s no end in sight to his hobby.

“I think I’ll always send them right up to the end,” he says.