Former Valentines

Former Valentines
by Susan Hammett Poole
written February 4, 2007

How delicious are the memories which unfold and encircle special occasions! February 14th of each year has brought warm, happy, fun feelings to my heart from the time I was old enough to know what a paper Valentine was until present day when grandchildren mail to me their precious little Valentine cards signed in red crayon.

For the six years spent at Harwell Avenue Grammar School, returning to school after Christmas holidays held an excitement for all the students because Valentine's Day was very near. The first week of February found the teachers thumbtacking or taping up silhouettes of red cupids holding hearts and arrows. Remember those? Windows, doors, chalkboards, cloakroom closet doors -- all had the cute little cherubic shapes attached to them. Hanging from every possible perch in the classroom were streamers we had made of red and white crepe paper intertwined to form long chains. Teachers passed out stacks of red construction paper and every child was taught to cut out paper hearts of all sizes. Folding the sheet of paper in half and using those blunt-nosed scissors, we learned to ever so carefully cut out half a heart, then opening the half...magically, a whole heart would appear! The project that was most near and dear to our young hearts was the making of our very own Valentine Box. That special mailbox with the long slit on top would hold the paper Valentines that would be dropped in by classmates during the week of the 14th. Year after year I can so clearly recall choosing a shoebox from Mama's closet that would be sturdy enough to hold all the wonderful cards I anticipated receiving at school. Using lacy paper doilies, red paper, tinfoil for shiny hearts, ribbon and red crepe paper, all attached to the box sides and lid with that rubbery amber-colored glue of the 1950's, I would fashion the prettiest box imaginable in my little-girl world. If you did this, too, can you remember just how proud you were to carry your beautiful Valentine Box to school? On the day we so eagerly awaited, we celebrated by having a party at school: white frosted cupcakes with red-hot cinnamon hearts sprinkled on top were everyone's favorite. Somebody's mother would furnish the homemade lemonade or the cherry Kool-aid; another would parcel out small piles of the tiny pastel-colored candy hearts with words stamped on each. We children would hurriedly read each special sentiment then would begin to swap them with classmates. "Heart-throb" might be shyly handed to a secret sweetheart; "Friend Forever" would be given to a buddy; "Love Always" or "Be Mine" would go to a best friend. I guess we didn't worry about 30 pairs of grubby hands handling these candies...we popped them into our mouths anyway! After the refreshments, it was time to be handed our individual Valentine Boxes. Admiring the various pretty boxes which belonged to the children seated around me was something I recall with delight. Excitedly lifting the lid of my own Valentine Box filled with cards, I saw that some were hand-made, others store-bought, and a few had red lollipops slipped through two slits in the card. It was fun to read the flowery words of greeting and signature printed on each. All the above made Valentine's an absolutely delicious-feeling day!

Junior High brought a different experience to Valentine's Day. Homeroom teachers allowed Valentines to be swapped among the students before the bell rang for the first period class to begin; however, I don't recall giving out cards wholesale to my classmates...just to a select few. Perhaps we celebrated the day with a brief party, I hope so, but that's not in my memory bank. What does stick in my mind though is a Valentine that I received from an admirer in 8th grade, a tall and lanky boy with a brown crewcut. Bicycling to town one Saturday afternoon, I lingered over the card rack at Holmes Drugstore and finally selected a special card for him containing a sweet verse about friendship. We exchanged our special cards during homeroom that morning of February 14, 1960. I don't know what he thought of the card I handed him because as I opened his card to me, I quickly read it then hotly blushed from my neck to the top of my head and rushed straight to first period class. On the front of the card was a crazy cartoon buzzard holding a large red heart and flowers. The message inside was what made my face turn crimson as the heart: "Roses are red, Violets are blue, this buzzard is cute, and so are you!" In my heart of hearts and from the perspective of time, I do believe he meant to be funny, but this lanky boy, who shall forever remain nameless, embarrassed me because I thought he was equating me with a raucous ol' bird. The 'cute' part did not register with me at all. One thing of which I am quite certain: his mother did not buy that card, only an adolescent boy would have chosen a Valentine card like that! Maybe I should be glad he spent that quarter on me and not on another girlfriend! Puppy love...hmmfff!

Something else connected to Valentine's Day occurred when I was a sophomore in high school. My younger sister Sandi and I decided that we would decorate the open doorway to our parents' bedroom in the Valentine theme. We made all these brilliant plans and carried them out after they had gone to sleep that night of the 13th. What is it about the best laid plans of mice and men going astray? Well, behind the closed door of my bedroom, she and I pulled out all the supplies which we had gathered. For a couple of hours, we busily cut out dozens of large hearts from red construction paper and cut the nylon lace off old petticoats so we could Elmer-glue the yards of lace around each heart as we designed this surprise gift. Scotch-taping together enough brown paper sacks to form a panel exactly bedroom door size was the easy part. That panel would be taped to Mama and Daddy's bedroom doorway with our elaborate decorations covering every inch. With red Magic Marker pens, we wrote "I LOVE YOU" and silly little messages like "Love & Marriage Go Together Like A Horse & Carriage", "Hilt + Katherine = Love", or "Who loves you? Susan & Sandi do!", all printed on the hand-cut hearts. Sandi's and my excited chatter tumbled out as we worked on this biggest-ever Valentine card. The moment came when we finished, stood back and declared it to be a fine piece of artwork which any mother and father would be thrilled to receive from their creative children. With the dimmest of lamplight shining, we crept down the long hallway from my room to theirs, trying really hard to not step on the part of the floor that always squeaked. We also were going slowly enough to not cause the paper panel to make a rattling noise. We listened for the soft snuffling breaths of our mother and the loud snores of our father; all was well. Ever so quietly, we lifted the panel to the open doorway, hurriedly taped all the paper edges around the wood moulding then crept back down the hall. We fell into our beds trying to muffle our giggles. Thinking how pleasantly surprised our parents were going to be when they awoke the following morning and saw the huge Valentine attached to their door, Sandi and I went to sleep smiling. It couldn't have been more than a couple of hours afterwards that we heard a loud crash and expletives coming forth from Daddy's mouth. Something happened that my sister and I had not counted on. It was still the middle of the night and the telephone rang. Since Daddy was a physician, it was not unusual to awaken a couple of mornings a week around 6 A.M. and hear him give orders to the hospital nurses about his patients who were being prepped for surgery. Instead of having a bedside telephone, the house phone sat in a tiny wall alcove which was located in the hallway just outside my parents' bedroom door. You can probably guess the rest. The phone rang while it was still dark, our half-asleep Daddy stumbled toward the bedroom door and the jangling phone, crashed into the doorsized Valentine card which he could not see, and the rest is history. Bumping into something unexpectedly in the dark, then in all the confusion, it gives away and begins to wrap itself around the body -- well, one's imagination can do cartwheels. Utter surprise, fright, falling down, anger at the unknown, and a noisy phone that continued to "brrrring" out of reach -- all that did not make for a Happy Valentine's Day greeting. The entire household had awakened by the time Daddy picked himself up off the floor and jerked the ringing phone off its hook. He was saying very loud words that were quite harsh to young ears and to the unlucky emergency room nurse who had telephoned at 4 o'clock in the morning when everyone ordinarily would be greeting one another with sweet words on that Valentine's Day. As Mama, Sandi, our younger brother, and I stood in the hallway staring in disbelief at Daddy, we inherently knew that we had to contain ourselves and not show him that we thought the Crash!Boom!Bang! was hilarious. With the light switched on, we saw the lace, curly ribbon, red paper and sack paper strewn all over and a mad male tangled up in it, stomping around the narrow hall. What would you have done? Sandi and I crept back down that hall and didn't fall into bed smiling. No, this time we had our heads stuck in our pillows beneath the covers and were holding our sides because they were totally splitting from our gales of laughter!

And those are the former Valentines that stand out in my mind as I sit here ten days away from celebrating yet another February 14th. I am positive this one will be a much quieter version of Valentine's Day. It's a sure bet that I will not be cutting off any nylon lace from an old ruffled petticoat in order to glue it around a construction paper heart! Not even in my dreams!

Story ID:	1614
Written by:	Susan Hammett Poole (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Family Memories
Writers Conference:	$500 2007 Family Memories Writing Project
Location:	LaGrange GA USA
Year:	1960
Person:	myself