hearts

I think I probably wrote about this before but there isn't a Valentine Day that rolls around that I don't think of this incident and am humbled, so bear with me as I don this year's hair shirt!

The year is most likely 1950 and in our humble schoolhouse, I'm a dweller of the Lowers, Grades 1-4. And as was always the case in those days, in great anticipation of the Holiday of Love we covered a box of some size with white paper and cut-out hearts and valentine doilies. The regal box had a large slit at the top to drop said Valentines in as the days went by. I remember Mother buying Valentines - sometimes in a pack, sometimes the kind that you had to punch out of paper molds. We spent nights matching the appropriate ones to our classmates. Mother always insisted that we give one to everyone.

Not every mother was so inclined. And on that exciting day when St. Valentine finally swooped into our little classroom and the box 's contents were revealed and delivered, it was always a contest to see who got the most Valentines - and then of course to feign modesty if it happened to be you!

When into this frenzied ego trip came one of my conservative Mennonite classmates, with a cloth-lined basket walking up and down the aisles handing out freshly baked homemade sugar cookies slathered with rich creamy icing as her Valentines. And I felt so sorry for her that she didn't have flimsy little paper Valentines to hand out like most of the rest of us. Imagine how she must have felt!

Imagine how I feel  65 years later! Horrified by my snobbery and small mindedness.

And longing to have one of those cookies in my mouth this very minute!