By Bill King
Valentine’s Day is not a Christian holiday, but it is a good time to express our love to the one we love. My earliest memories of Valentine’s Day take me back to my school days at Plainview Elementary. I wasn’t married then! I might have had a girlfriend, but I’m not telling her name! Each year, my classmates and I exchanged Valentine cards. They weren’t the expensive cards like you might buy at a drugstore. They were the cheap kind that we bought at the 5 & 10. Back then, we could buy an entire package of little valentines, complete with envelopes, for about the price of one big one now. Wow, that takes us back a few years! There are no 5 & 10 stores anymore. The 5 & 10 stores evolved into Dollar Stores. Even Dollar Tree, which boasted of everything costing one dollar, now charges $1.25. Ironically, they still call themselves Dollar Tree. Now we even have a store called “5 and Below.” BTW, the 5 is not a nickel! Eventually, we’ll probably have $100 & $200 stores. I’m sorry; excuse the rabbit chasing.
Anyway, back in elementary school, we each hung our own personalized, hand-made Valentine bags on the classroom wall. We made them from brown-paper bags. I think one year we got fancy and even had white bags. We wrote our names on the bags with crayons and drew red hearts, or whatever else we wanted, on them. Mine were such masterpieces that the Smithsonian wanted them for the art museum. Well, not quite, but Mama always said they were beautiful. We stuffed them with cards before Valentine’s Day, then on the day itself, we took them down, pulled out the cards, and read them. Some classmates put other things, like candy conversation hearts, in our bags. One year, one of the girls put Creepy Crawlers in them. Mattel sold something called a “Thing-maker.” The Thing-maker included a metal mold on a hot plate and “Plastigoop” that you poured in it to cook up rubber bugs, worms, and other such necessities. My “girlfriend” made a rubber bat and put it in my bag, along with her Valentine that said she loved me. Since Batman was my favorite show on television, I asked her to marry me. Honestly, I can’t remember if she said yes, but I’m fairly certain that Mama said no…no way! Since we were only 10, and Mama was not in favor, the wedding never happened. Besides, I later found out she gave those to everybody.
Ten years later, I asked Jean Willis to marry me. She said yes. She had not even given me a rubber bat, but I loved her just the same and still do! We’ve never hung paper bags on the wall to put cheap cards in, but we have shared many Valentines. In recent years, I (usually as Brother Billy Bob) have often been the program at a banquet on Valentine’s evenings. Jean has been understanding and gracious enough to allow our Valentine’s date night to be either before or after the actual date. This year I turned down any invitation for Valentine’s Day so I could take her to a nice new restaurant in Opelika on “the day.” When I called to make a reservation, guess what? Yeah, so we’ll go there on Thursday after Valentine’s!
The greatest love of all is the love of God. According to I John 4:19, we love Him, because He first loved us. He loves us so much that He didn’t give flowers or candy. He gave His only begotten Son.
