Well, here it is again — that most romantic of all days. The day when all the retailers convince you that your level of romance is directly proportional to amount of money spent…. and the day it’s impossible to go to dinner, of if you do you have to sit with strangers because the restaurant has added fifty more tables and if you drop your fork, your plate will be gone and the next romantic couple will be sliding into your chairs.
Like everything else, Valentine’s Day has been commercialized to death, but it’s still a pretty neat day. We probably all remember that in grade school we all got and gave valentines to everyone in our class. We probably didn’t want to give everyone in our class a valentine, but our mothers made us.
But here we are at Valentine’s Day, 2015 and according to something I read, long-stemmed roses cost about 30% more around Valentine’s Day than any other time of the year. More than nine million pet owners will buy their pets valentine gifts. Teachers receive the most valentines, followed by kids, mothers, wives and sweethearts. One billion valentines are sent each year worldwide, making it the second largest card-sending holiday of the year — exceeded only by Christmas.
According to legend, in the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. This probably led to the current phrase “to wear your heart on your sleeve,” which means being transparent with your affections. The Catholic Church struck St. Valentine’s Dy from its official calendar in 1969.
So I hope everyone has a nice Valentine’s Day, and you do something special with that special someone. There’s an old saying that, “Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” By the way, during my extensive research for this article, I discovered that penicillin, a popular treatment for venereal diseases such as syphilis, was introduced to the world on February 14, 1929. Make of that what you will….
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