I don't know if kids today get excited about Valentine's Day the way we used to "back in the day," but we got excited! It wasn't so much because it was Valentine's Day, and it certainly wasn't because of the implications of romance, as it was because our classroom learning came to a standstill for a while and we didn't have schoolwork to do. Besides, we got to have a party, and that meant plenty of sugary foods.
Most teachers seemed to schedule our parties near the end of the day, so we were all keyed up by the time the room mothers arrived with the red-white-and-pink-icinged cupcakes and ice cream. While the teacher and other mothers set everything up, one mother usually organized us to play several short games.
Then we grabbed the white paper bags that we had all decorated with cut-out and glued-on red-and-white hearts cut to resemble lace doilies and on which we had printed our name. We lined them up on the floor along the wall--alphabetically, I assume. Then, one by one, each student took his or her stack of Valentines he had purchased and addressed to individual students, and dropped them into the classmates' respective bags.
When Mother helped me select Valentine's card packages, she ensured that the package contained enough cards for every student to have one plus a few extras. She knew by instinct that I would no doubt mess up in writing on a few of them. She also insisted that the package include one for the teacher. If any were left over, she said I could give them to friends who weren't in my class. Or my sister.
What?! No brother in his right mind would give his own bratty sister a Valentine!
Mother oversaw my filling out of each Valentine. I think she must have had access to the official class list because she ensured that I left no one out. She was particularly watchful that I included every girl in the distribution. She was overly helpful about suggesting certain cards for certain individuals with whose parents she had attended school.
"Here's a good one for Elizabeth," she might hint.
"No, Mother! I can't give her that one!" I'd object.
"And why not?" she'd demand.
"It's too mushy! She might think I like her!"
"And what's wrong with that? You do like her, don't you?"
"Well," I'd grudgingly admit, "she's alright. At least she's a good kicker in kick-ball games. But I don't like her the way that card seems to make it sound!"
"Well, you give it to her anyway." I'll bet she'll give you a nice one."
Some of those cards had me telling girls things like "Be mine." (I didn't want them.) "You make my heart flutter." (They actually turned my stomach.) "Yours truly." (I wasn't theirs at all.) "Sweethearts." (More like heartburn.)
When I got home after school, Mother would ask to see my bag of Valentines before I hardly got through the door. She dumped them on the dining room table and began reading every one of them. And she had to remark about each one, especially those from girls.
"Oooh! This girl must really like you!" she'd exclaim with raised eyebrows and a sly smile. "Look how she signed her name. She even dotted the I with a heart!"
"Oh, Mother!" I'd protest vigorously. "She's a girl!"
And so it went until she'd seen every last card.
"You didn't bring much candy home." She always noticed that. I knew better than to bring home any of the candy hearts with messages printed on them because she'd always read them and make it seem as though the girl who had included them with the Valentine she gave me was a marriage proposal. At least eating all the candy would preempt that embarrassment.
Over the years, of course, all that changed. I learned that not all girls had cooties, just some of them. Mother stopped teasing me about perceived but nonexistent romances. She was not reticent, however, about letting me know of any female friends of whom she disapproved.
But then came the day when I introduced her to the girl I wanted to be my wife, and I saw her immediate look of approval. (I had already made up my mind, and even if she had disapproved, we were getting married!) Fortunately, the bond between future daughter-in-law and future mother-in-law was cemented at that very moment. There was just something about her mother's intuition.
Mother and Connie had that bond for only about four years, from the day they met, through the wedding more than a year later, our first year of marriage, and the birth of our first daughter, right up until her life was tragically ended by a drunk driver.
That bond of a mother's approval made every subsequent Valentine's Day a special day, even without cards or candy hearts.
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