I hate the color purple. So when we launched the Uni Watch membership card program in 2007, one of my rules, right from the start, was that we would not produce a card with even a hint of purple.
This was a drag for people who wanted a card design based on the Rockies, Vikings, or some other purple-based team. So on May 17th, 2010, reader Tim Cox (who lives in Denver and is a Rockies fan) suggested that I create a 24-hour window for people to order membership cards with purple-inclusive designs, which up until then had been banned. I thought that was a fun idea, and thus Purple Amnesty Day was born — an annual purple-centric Uni Watch holiday, observed on May 17th.
Purple Amnesty Day — or Purp Walk, as it came to be known (a nickname coined in 2015 by membership card designer Scott M.X. Turner) — eventually expanded beyond the membership card loophole and became the one day of the year when I’d grudgingly acknowledge, and even celebrate, the world’s most accursed color. The day had its own T-shirts (all created by the great Bryan Molloy, who also created Uni Watch’s winged stirrup logo) and its own slogan (“For People Purple Who Get It™” — Bryan came up with that as well), plus we had purple-centric articles, purple-clad reader gatherings, and more. A couple of times I even dressed head-to-toe in purple (as seen in the photo at the top of this page).
We retired the ritual after I stepped away from Uni Watch in 2024. But since I began posting again in April of 2026, Purp Walk resumed. I’m not sure we’ll keep doing it in the future, but we’ll see.