Valentine Greetings!

Warm (85 degree) Wishes to my Friends and, in the spirit of the day, even people who don't like me because Valentine's Day is for everyone-even assholes. The day has evolved-this is a 1910 Valentine card, but it has also evolved for me in the different stages of life: From the classroom packs laboriously printed with names of all my classmates. To the pre-sensitive era when the scandal was "Marie didn't get a single Valentine," to giving Marsha Brown a friendship ring which she rejected because she was "going with" Dick Chura (he is dead and Marsha and I are still friends), to making Valentines with construction paper and doilies, to high school where we kept count of our popularity by how many singing Valentines we got from the student council fundraiser, to courtship, to early marriage ( something soft and satiny) to later marriage (better not forget if you know what's good for you) to post-marriage (fat lot of good they did you) to today when like the early days, a Valentine means "you like me, you really, really like me." (Sally Fields).

My dear departed mother and I had a tradition of homemade Valentines with a handwrought verse, usually silly. Her most memorable effort:
Rose's are Red
Violet's are pink
And So Are Yours,
I think.

So let's raise a glass to toast the idea of Love in its many forms. It's "What the World Needs Now." (Dionne Warwick)