{"id":1738,"date":"2020-02-14T12:41:50","date_gmt":"2020-02-14T12:41:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1738"},"modified":"2020-02-14T12:41:50","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T12:41:50","slug":"valentines-day-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=1738","title":{"rendered":"Valentine’s Day \u2014 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Well, here it is another one of those big February celebrations \u2014 Valentine\u2019s Day. I guess it\u2019s generally considered to be one of, if not the<\/em>, most romantic days of the year. It\u2019s a long standing tradition that I talk about Valentine\u2019s Day every year on this blog. If you\u2019ve read the February 14 entries over the years, you know that while we celebrate a lot<\/em> of holidays, we don\u2019t celebrate Valentine\u2019s Day \u2014 at least not on Valentine\u2019s Day. We\u2019ve always found restaurants or places that we\u2019d like to go on Valentine\u2019s Day just too crowded so we either celebrate the occasion before or after the fact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valentine\u2019s Day, like most everything else, has changed over the years. When I was young, we always had a Valentine\u2019s Day party at school. Today, I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s allowed at all schools, and even those that do allow it, operate with some constraints. If you remember last year, I told you that you could find all the romance you need at White Castle \u2014 the hamburger chain. I hope you took my advice and made reservations for this year. Probably when I was young(er) I never would have thought to take a date or spouse to White Castle on this, perhaps the most romantic day of the year. See? Things change\u2026 so maybe this is a good time to reminisce about earlier times \u2014 not to say they were better\u2026 just different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not sure if this is true, but history\u2019s first valentine may have been written in a prison. In the 15th century, Charles, Duke of Orleans, at the age of 21, wrote a love poem to his second wife after he was captured at the Battle of Agincourt. He was a prisoner for more than 20 years and would never see his valentine\u2019s reaction to his poetry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some say Valentine\u2019s Day origin can be traced to a Christian effort to replace a pagan fertility festival that has been dated as far back as the 6th century B.C. During the festival of Lupercalia, Roman priests would sacrifice goats and dogs and use their blood-soaked hides to slap women on the streets, as a fertility blessing. According to legend, women would later put their names in an urn and be selected to be paired with a man for a year. Not sure why you\u2019d want to replace such a fun festival, but apparently someone thought a Valentine\u2019s Day celebration would be better\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cupid has bee associated with Valentine\u2019s Day for centuries. But \u2014 before he was renamed Cupid, he was known to the Greeks as Eros, the god of love. Eros was the son of Greek goddess Aphrodite and would use two sets of arrows \u2014 one for love and another for hate to play with the emotions of those he shot. We can credit the Romans for changing his image into the childlike appearance that we recognize today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You know those chalky heart-shaped candies that always show up around Valentines Day? Guess what \u2014 they started out as lozenges. The machine to create the lozenges was invented by a pharmacist, Oliver Chase. He figured out that the machine could also be used to create candy \u2014 these candies later became known as Necco Wafers. Chase\u2019s brother came up with the idea to print messages on the candy and a number of years later the candy was made in heart shapes \u2014 that appealed to people, especially around Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I guess the point here is that love is where \u2014 and when \u2014 you find it. Maybe a hamburger is another man\u2019s rose\u2026.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Well, here it is another one of those big February celebrations \u2014 Valentine\u2019s Day. I guess it\u2019s generally considered to be one of, if not the, most romantic days of the year. It\u2019s a long standing tradition that I talk … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1738"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1739,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1738\/revisions\/1739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}