Well it has arrived, that holiday for the eternal romantics...Valentines day. It's a day second only to April 15th, on being dreaded by so many. If you start to think long enough, there are many parallels to tax day and Valentine's day,.... but I won't go there, for which I am sure you are all thankful. I have to admit I was on tenderhooks, biting my nails,..... leery..... encase Vero was going to proclaim this past week as romance week,... I didn't want to be caught left holding the bag again in the produce aisle.
There have been a few blogs on love poems, songs, and different things on the history of valentines. I thought of doing a blog on all kinds of chocolate and then I talked myself out of it. I was going to post recipes of decadent chocolate delights and then I got to thinking....It was bad enough that some of you are feeling down, or feeling alone on this day, and to post on chocolate (if you didn't have any in the house) was like rubbing salt in the wounds. It's bad enough with all this mushy valentine stuff, but to be without chocolate as well....it was going too far,... it was too much,.... it just wasn't fair! So I will save you the chocolate blog for another time. .....I know...it's shocking isn't it?
When people mention Valentine's Day, a lot of people think chocolate, flowers, jewelry, lingerie, all kinds of things that are exchanged. When I think of Valentine's Day,...I think of cards. No, not those fancy overpriced Hallmark cards, but those cheap boxes of colored bits of paper with the corny sayings. The kind of cards you gave out as a kid.
I grew up in a rural area and went to a small country school. Valentine's day meant bringing an old shoe box or kleenex box to school for your valentines. It was colored and covered in paper and a slot cut in the top of the box for cards from the other students. The boxes would be placed along the windowsill in a long line, like a train. You couldn't help but notice the bright colors when you went to sharpen your pencil and daydream out the window.
I remember my mom getting us boxes of cards to hand out to our schoolmates. At night, I would lay out all of the cards and carefully look each of them over. I had to give the right card to the right person. I couldn't give just anyone a card that said on it..."I like you"... or "Be Mine"...I sorted out the bigger and best cards to give to my closest friends. If I had my choice, there was always a couple of kids, boys... in fact,.... that I didn't want to give a mushy card to. After all I didn't want the recipient to actually think I LIKED them.... Boys were icky back then.... But my mom would insist that I send a card to everyone in my class. So I would pick out some non-descript card with the least sentimental note on it, and painstakenly scrawl my name on the back of the card. The week before Valentines' Day we would stuff those boxes at school with our cards. Early in the morning, we would shake our boxes to see if there was anything in them, and on Feb. 14th we were allowed to take our boxes to our desks and open them up and look at all of our cards.
Some cards would have glitter on them, or they would be mushy, or be silly. A few of the cards in the white paper envelopes would contain red suckers or boxes of the hard conversation heart candy. How lucky you felt to have so many cards and some with candy! ...You would also find that you got a card from everyone in your class. I guess those kids heard the same lecture from their moms on card giving as well, or maybe moms just knew back then, that everyone should get a card... Everyone deserves a card.
Once in a great while, you would find a card that was too big to fit in the box, so it was tucked under your box or behind it. Everyone knew when you got a big card, it was out of the ordinary, big cards cost extra. As you carefully opened your big card, there would be a small crowd around you, they were almost as anxious as you were to find out who the card came from. Your face would be beet red and burning when you found out the card was from that shrimpy, tow-headed guy, who was as loud and cocky as a banty rooster. Oh how you felt like crawling inside your desk, wishing the school bell would ring as you were ....as well as the giver, being teased.
I always took my box of cards home and I kept them for the longest time. The candy would have been eaten long ago, but the cards remained. The cards would be brought out to be looked at and admired, and then tucked back in the box, only to be forgotten and tossed out later. They were after all, just silly bits of colored paper.
One year our teacher decided we needed to send our parents a homemade card as well. We had to draw and write our own special poem on the inside of the card. I can't remember what I wrote on my card but I remember the paper doily stuck on the back of the red construction paper heart and carefully coloring and drawing on my Valentine card for my parents. My brothers were also each making cards and my youngest brother wrote a poem on the inside of his card for our parents....
"Roses are red
Violets are blue,
That lunch that you sent me
Simply won't do!"
Our teacher was mortified,...how we snickered and giggled reading his poem. Later my mom opened each of the cards from us. The pretty cards,... the solemn cards,... and my brother's card. She chuckled so much. What can I say? I come from a wacky family.
Today there are going to be some of you who are going to get big pretty fancy cards. Some of you will get boxes of chocolates, and gifts of perfume, jewelry, perhaps some pretty frilly lingerie or even a gag gift or two. Some of you are going to be alone. Some of you are going to come home exhausted from just another day at work. Some of you will find yourself at the stove cooking a dinner after a long day and grumbling under your breath...'happy valentine's day' while your significant other is propped in front of the tv. For some of you the day is going to be an ordinary day, and for some of you the day will be something special and shared by someone special in your life.
I wish the day could be everything you expect or want it to be.
If I could, I would slip into your blog box some brightly colored bits of paper...
Be My Valentine.
Love,
Vic
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