Well, here it is Valentine’s Day again. The day is dedicated to Saint Valentine — the Patron Saint of affianced couples, bee keepers, engaged couples, epilepsy, fainting, greetings, happy marriages, love, lovers, plague, travelers, and young people. The origin of St. Valentine, and how many St. Valentines there were, remains a mystery. One opinion is that he was a Roman martyred for refusing to give up his Christian faith. Other historians believe that St. Valentine was a temple priest jailed for defiance during the reign of Claudius. Whoever he was, he became famous because archaeologists unearthed a Roman catacomb and an ancient church dedicated to Saint Valentine. In 496 AD, Pope Gelasius marked February 14th as a celebration in honor of his martyrdom.
Saints are not supposed to rest in peace — they’re expected to keep busy — to perform miracles, to intercede. Being in jail or dead is no excuse for non-performance of the supernatural. One legend says that while awaiting his execution, Valentine restored the sight of his jailer’s blind daughter. Another legend says, on the eve of his death, he penned a farewell note to the jailer’s daughter, signing it, “From you Valentine.” Yet another theory is that during his reign. Claudius, didn’t want men to marry during wartime because he believed single men made better soldiers. A Bishop Valentine went against his wishes and performed secret wedding ceremonies. For this, Valentine was jailed and executed. At any rate, it seems pretty certain that February 14th was his day of execution.
I’ve heard that more than 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are sold for Valentine’s Day each year. Worldwide, over 50 million roses are given for Valentine’s Day every year. 73% of people that buy flowers are men — only 27% are women. Every Valentine’s Day, the Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare’s lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet. Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone on Valentine’s Day in 1876.
And how does Cupid figure into all this? According to Roman mythology, Cupid was the son of Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. Cupid was known to cause people to fall in love by shooting them with his magical arrows. Those that are into this Cupid thing know that he not only carries gold headed arrows to make people fall in love, but he also carries a set of lead headed arrows that can inspire the emotion of hatred in those that are struck by them. Actually, I don’t see as many references to Cupid around Valentine’s Day as I remember when I was a kid. Maybe people are wising up — he wears a diaper; I’m not sure why being hit with an arrow in the butt by some kid in a diaper was ever considered romantic to begin with.
Of course if you’re from Chicago, you can’t think about Valentine’s Day without remembering February 14, 1929 — the day of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, probably the most spectacular gangland slaying in mob history. Even though it was spectacular it was somewhat of a failure.
The plan, attributed to Al Capone, was to have Chicago mobster George “Bugs” Moran and most of his North Side Gang eliminated. The plan was that a bootlegger loyal to Capone would draw Moran and his gang to a warehouse under the pretense that they would be receiving a shipment of smuggled whiskey for a price that seemed to good to be true. The delivery was set for a warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street in Chicago at 10:30 am on Valentine’s Day. (Capone arranged to distance himself, by spending time at his home in Miami.) That morning, a group of Moran’s men waited for Bugs Moran at the warehouse. As it turned out, Moran was running a bit late that morning and when his car turned the corner, he and his lackeys spotted a police wagon rolling up to the warehouse. Figuring it was a bust, he and his lackeys kept going. Inside the warehouse, Moran’s men were confronted by (Capone’s) hit men disguised as policemen. Assuming it was a routine bust, they followed instructions as they were ordered to line up against the wall. The hit men then opened fire with Thompson submachine guns, killing six of the seven men. The newspapers instantly picked up on the crime, dubbing it the “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Capone became a celebrity of sorts, even though the operation failed in its mission to rub out Bugs Moran.
While on the subject of love and massacres, you’re probably wondering why the letter ‘X’ represents a kiss… The custom dates back to the early Christian era, when a cross mark or an ‘X’ conveyed the force of a sworn oath. The cross referred to both the cross of Calvary and the first letter of the Greek word for Christ, Xristos. In days when few people could write, their signature cross, or ‘X,’ was a legally valid mark. To emphasize their complete sincerity, they often kissed the ‘X’ when an oath was sworn upon. It was this practice that led to its becoming the symbol of a kiss.
It has its lovers and its haters, but in spite of massacres, and the fact that the day bears little resemblance to romantic traditions of the Chaucerian age, Valentine’s Day remains the most romantic day of the year — so if you’re out and about, be careful; as they say, trip over love, you can get up, but fall in love and you fall forever.
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