Valentine's Day - Yesterday's Holiday? By Terry Beck

 I'm not sure how old I was, but it was the biggest box of candy I had ever seen. It seems like it was covered in an orangish-yellow satin cloth, shaped like a huge heart, with great big yellow roses mounted in the middle. I remember Mom opening up the box and my seeing more candy than I had ever seen in one place before. I remember Mom giving Dad a great big hug and a kiss and me thinking, "Let's get on with the candy eating!"

I remember Dad looking over at me and handing me a considerably smaller, red, heart shaped container of candy and saying, "Happy Valentine's Day!" I didn't have any idea what Valentine's Day was but I knew it was one of the neatest days there was.

That's the first recollection of Valentine's Day I have. I remember every year Dad would buy Mom a huge box of candy and a card with a bunch of mushy words written all over it with "I Love You!" being the main theme. I remember this day coming around every year, always with a huge box of candy and a mushy card for Mom and a smaller box of candy for me and later my four brothers. I can remember, as I became older, hearing Mom say, "Don, you shouldn't have spent so much money, we may need the money for something else."

I remember Dad saying we would always have money for Valentine's day. So, I grew up thinking Valentine's must be pretty special. As I recall, us kids would bug Mom to tears asking how long it was until Valentine's Day. We needed to know so we could start saving up our money to by Mom a card and something along the line of a stuffed animal to go with it because we knew Dad would have the candy angle covered.

Then, I began school and to my surprise other kids also knew about Valentine's Day, Valentine's Cards and Valentine's candy. As a matter of fact, the teachers seemed to be as excited about this special day as the rest of us. As I became older it became more and more obvious that "love" was the backbone, at least to me, of Valentine's Day, with candy, cards and frilly gifts being tokens of that love.

From the first grade through the seventh grade I had a girlfriend, although I'm sure Lynda was not aware of the fact through most of those years. I remember my Mom would buy my Valentine's cards for me but I would select and address the cards to my classmates. Of course I would always select the card I felt was most special to give to Lynda. I remember one year, Mom bought my cards and after I had addressed them, I was about five or six cards short. Mom went back to buy more cards but because she only needed a few more cards, she didn't buy the smaller packaged cards for groups, she just picked out six individual cards which turned out to be much larger than the normal group cards.

Mom addressed the final larger cards for me and I then delivered all the cards in our Valentine's party in class. The next day, the older sister of one of the girls in my class came up to me between classes at school and asked me if I liked her sister. I told her that I did like her sister. She then asked, "Like a girlfriend?" and I said that I already had a girlfriend. She then said, "Then why did you give her such a big Valentine's card?" That's when I had to drop the dime on my Mom and told her that my Mom had addressed that card, but that I did consider her sister a good friend.

I moved on to Junior High and High School with Valentine's Day in tow as one of the special holidays. I was just about as bashful as a kid could be but I still had girlfriends even if they weren't aware of the fact (I guess that would be a form of stalking today). However, I did have actual girlfriends and always tried to go all out for Valentine's Day. Nathan's Jewelers, there in my hometown of Brownwood, was my best friend on Valentine's Day because they would let me charge things.

Going on through High School and into college, I always thought of myself as a sort of romantic and the emotions I developed as a small child observing Valentine's Day were still a major part of that romanticism.

Then life did what it sometimes does and I was lost for a while. There was an occasional bout of fun and several near misses with love, but mostly they were lonely days. Not lonely with no people around, lonely due to the absence of emotional love. They were tough days, with Valentine's Day being the toughest of the tough days.

Then, after wondering through what seemed to be an endless maze of loveless days, I found myself face to face with the prettiest, quietest and sweetest gal that I had been around in years, maybe ever! On that day, love was reborn and with it a yet to end string of wonderful Valentine Days.

With love back in my heart, and maybe a little fear of losing it, I finally asked Amber to marry me. That was the sweetest "Yes" I ever heard. We didn't immediately set a date but over time, with circumstances, work and kinfolks influence we set a date. We were married on Valentine's Day 1976.

There are those who feel Valentine's Day is a ploy devised by businesses to exploit romantics into spending billions of dollars. That may be true, but Valentine's Day was special to me long before I knew what ploy, business or exploit even meant. It was the look in my Mom's eyes when she saw that huge yellow heart filled with candy and the hug she gave Dad. It is the day I married the grandest of all gals. It is the day I have now shared for forty-five years with my sweet Amber, my loving daughters, Shanon and Shaye and now my three tremendous grandchildren Cole, Emily and Abbie.

Whether I spend a dollar or spend nothing, Valentine's Day will always be the day I remember those I love and have loved and those who love and have loved me. Love to all....Happy Valentine's Day!