February 12, 2016
Dear Everyone:
Sunday is St
Valentine’s Day. This is
a rather strange holiday.
On the one hand, it’s a
Saint’s Day;
but apparently there are a plethora of possible saints, vaguely named “valentine”,
who could qualify as the saint-in-question.
On the other hand, it’s a “Hallmark
Holiday”, meaning it only really exists to sell cards, candy, cut
flowers and other merchandise.
It doesn’t really count as a “holiday” because no one gets the
day off from work, not even government workers who seem to get more
holidays than anyone else, outside of Italy.
And what, exactly, does “Saint Valentine” have to do with romance and
love? Absolutely nothing.
There have been various attempts to link February 14th with
some vaguely pre-Roman
springtime
fertility rites, but they always fall through.
Others point out that
Chaucer,
best known for his
Canterbury
Tales, wrote some romantic poetry and used Valentine’s name; but
that could have been nothing more than, pardon the expression,
poetic license.
So we have a holiday that’s not really a holiday, named for a saint, but
who knows which saint, the only purpose of which is to sell cards and
candy, flowers and lingerie, and really-big-teddy-bears, and make people
feel guilty if they don’t fall over themselves “celebrating” it.
They even made us participate when I was in elementary school.
Each year a bunch of eight-to-nine-year-olds were expected to
proclaim unrequited love for other eight-to-nine-year-olds for no real
reason. And, to make it
ecumenical, you
had to give a card to each and every one of your many, many classmates.
This was always a problem for me.
You see, I rarely knew the names of my classmates.
It was difficult to address “Be My Love” to the kid in the third
row when you didn’t know his name.
And why was that?
Bear in mind we’re talking about the height of the “Baby
Boom” in the early 1960s.
There were easily over three dozen kids in any given grade.
In fact, the third grade had so many children that one classroom
couldn’t hold them all. They
filled one room then moved the “leftovers” to another room already
half-filled with another class.
One teacher spent half her time teaching second-graders, then
gave them something “quiet” to do while she focused on the third-graders
in the same room.
Add to that the fact that our last name began with a “W”.
That meant that I was always in the last row.
All I ever saw of my classmates was the backs of their heads.
Sure there was time during recess.
But all the classes let out at the same time.
Dozens and dozens of kids all running around, not much time for
introductions.
So I never really saw the attraction in “celebrating” St Valentine’s
Day.
In other news…
Yesterday I sent out a “reminder” to our
ARMA Chapter Members that our next Monthly Meeting is set for next
Thursday. So far, four
people have signed up. I was
planning on spending time this week working on my presentation.
Then I realized that I would be wasting my time if the whole
thing falls through. So I’ll
wait until next week for that.
Everyone have a Happy Valentine’s Day.
Or not.
Dealer’s choice.
Love, as always,
Pete
| Previous | Next |