The inspiration for Valentine’s Day was a man named Saint Valentine.
He was a martyr. The definition of “martyr,” according to Webster is “one who gets whacked for no good reason.”
I believe our modern culture has confused “traumatic” with “romantic.” Personally, I don’t consider getting beat upside the head a particularly loving gesture. In fact, I try to avoid death when at all possible.
The symbolism associated with Valentine’s Day is dubious. It’s the only holiday whose chief symbol, namely Cupid, is armed. He carries around a bow and arrow and shoots people in the backside.
Take the other holiday figures for example. Do you see Santa Claus with a sawed-off shotgun? Ho, Ho, Ho, Put your hands in the air! Do Leprechauns wield bazookas? Are the Easter Bunny, Uncle Sam, and the Tooth Fairy part of a militia that trains in the backwoods of Mississippi?
Well, maybe.
But at least other holiday characters give you stuff: pots of gold, presents, cash, eggs, and W-2 forms. And if Santa is a touch overweight, he hides it well by not running around in Speedos with a band of cherubim.
That’s right, Cupid is nude. Nekkid. And worse, he’s fat. Couldn’t the greeting-card people have picked a Greek god that was attractive: say, Venus or Adonis? Why pick one that resembles “Norm” from Cheers?
The first paper valentine was written sometime in the 1400s. Five hundred years later, I scribbled my first valentine as a kindergartner. It took three horses’ worth of glue trying to get all my glitter and those little lacy things to stay on the red construction paper.
When my sweetie, Ginger Airhart (a six-year-old bombshell) got the card, I’m fairly sure it was the poetic “Love Morgan” inscription that won her over–of course, the noxious glue fumes probably helped.
Over the years, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and even the Partridge Family have graced my little love notes. What I liked about those Valentines is that they were neutral. “What’s up Doc?” or “Have a Loony Tunes Valentine’s!” didn’t necessarily mean you were out sitting in some tree with that person. As a result, everyone got valentines, including Burke Hulsey, who ate boogers and wore headgear that was big enough to pick up radio waves from Poland.
But then in Junior High School, the meaning of Valentine’s day changed. Only the adventurous gave cards to the opposite sex. I tried that once.
Simone Vavoom was one of the prettier creatures in the eighth grade, in part because she only had to wear her headgear at night. And I was lucky enough to be her lab partner, which means we got to do romantic things together like cut up baby pigs. On that fateful Valentine’s Day, I wrote her an anonymous love poem and strategically placed it atop her vivisected rat kidney.
When she found the poem, I casually pretended to be inspecting a giant Earthworm while my little biology-beloved read my sonnet. Finally, she looked up at me and said, “Did you write this?”
“Uh, ah, well, um, er, yes,” I bravely said. I was fighting to hold down the five jelly-encased Vienna sausages I had eaten for lunch.
“Who is about?” As you can see, Simone was a get-to-the-point kinda girl.
If I’d been a suave sort of guy, I would have calmly said “you” and shot her my trademark Elvis lip curl. But under the mighty power of an eighth-grade women’s stare, I admit it, I caved. “The Statue of Liberty,” I blurted.
Okay, so maybe Lady Liberty wasn’t the best of answers. I tried to show Simone that the poem really was about our nation’s leading landmark. I remember changing one too, “Your skin is like a crumpled, green, one-dollar bill”
She smiled, kept the poem, and we got on with obliterating various barnyard animals.
But in my heart, I’d like to think she didn’t believe me.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
—Morgan Murphy