 Image via Wikipedia |
| I always loved these candy hearts! I still do. |
Valentine's Day during the elementary school days was always a big favorite with me. For one thing there was always a pretty decent party with homemade cupcakes and fruity drinks.
We'd spend the morning and perhaps part of the previous day decorating white paper bags with red construction paper hearts, white paper lace doilies. and Valentine Day themed stickers provided by the teacher. The night before the big day we students would prepare the cards that would be distributed to those paper bags.
I always added a few carefully chosen candy conversation hearts to the card, which had also been carefully matched to the recipients. The most intimate and mushiest were prepared for the girls I liked the best, while the ones that conveyed just nice friendly messages went to the boys, and to the girls who weren't my favorites.
After the school day was over my sister Joy and I would examine our haul for the day as we sat in the middle of the living room floor. Secretly I would see what messages I could decipher in my cards and candy. Dreams of romance warmed my head as I happily consumed sweet chalky candy conversations.
Eventually Joy and I would start playing with the cards. Some of them would be carefully arranged as scenic background while others became characters in the stories we played. When dinnertime came the cards were put away and eventually forgotten.
I suppose the cards were thrown away fairly quickly. I don't remember seeing them over the years. I think some of my daughters' old valentine cards are still around, but I'm certain that none of mine survived. It would be fun to find some of those old cards to see what the different girls had to say--what messages they had conveyed to me. Girls like Phyllis, Barbara, Annette, Kandy, and Grace. I wonder where they are now and what they did in their lives. One thing I do know is that if they managed to make it this far in life then they're the same age as me.
They were little girls the last time I saw them. And I was just a boy of 9, 10, or 11. A lot has happened since that time; a lot has changed. Valentine isn't a favorite holiday anymore for me. But I still like the candy. I'm always a sucker for candy. And I really shouldn't be.
