Your first Valentine?

Sorry, Adam, but all those memories have been deleted. I do have a specific memory of the night BEFORE Valentine's Day, 1972, when my youngest sister was born. I was seven. It was a Sunday night, and I remember getting the news while watching "The Wonderful World of Disney" and jumping up and down on the sofa.

Wow, Adam. You set the bar too high...if you're going to ask for comments, you can't start it off with a success story! All I remember about childhood V-Days was that I spent the night before agonizing over EVERY valentine. I laid out each one in the package, from the most platonic to the most romantic message, and made sure that I didn't give the wrong type to the wrong person. And I never got a pocketfull of candy hearts. :(

OK -- can't top Adam's story. And this isn't technically a "Valentine's Day" story (I've never liked those little candy hearts, anyway), but it's maybe in the right vein ...

I think it was 7th grade when I asked a certain someone if she would go to The Empire Strikes Back with me (waaaay back when the Grand was actually a movie theater). She seemed to think that was OK, but when I finally called her to make the arrangements her dad (who worked with my dad at Olaf and was always nice to me) said it wasn't a good idea. No date.

So sometime later I asked her to go cross-country skiing at Carleton's Arb (well, hey -- that could have been on Valentine's Day, for all I remember). She seemed to think that was OK, but when I finally called to make arrangements her dad thought it seemed OK, too! Yeah!

I was so excited when my skiing date showed up ... along with her dad and younger brother.

Let's just say I got the message.

Don't have a great story to share but I'll pass along my favorite candy heart message. Found it a few years back and have saved it 'cuz it still cracks me up (and pretty much reflects my feelings about the holiday). Rather than reading "U R A 10," mine says "U R A 0" -- the '1' isn't just faded away but completely missing. Love it.

How about the moment when valentine’s day returned to being a day of candy hearts and gorging on chocolate? Valentine’s Day 1996 – I had a sitter scheduled for our colicky three month old. Todd was in charge of restaurant plans. We showed up at Macaroni Grill in Burnsville without reservations. You know what’s coming – an hour and 45 minute wait …figured every other Burnsville place would be the same deal. After a glass of wine and the designated wait time, Todd running on empty from sleepless baby nights, decided it was time for a quite frankly speech with the management. By this point they were happy to seat us and asked what else they could do to remedy the situation. I whispered, ask them for free dessert. But no, my oh-so- tired husband decided that he had had his fill of the place. We drove home to order Basil pizza and take turns with crabby baby. It took 3 years before we could return to Macaroni Grill and I’m not sure if we’ve gone out on Valentine’s Day since …maybe when you are sure of your valentine you should just sit back and enjoy the chocolate.

OK, so my Valentine's memories are a lot older than most of those written about so far. Valentine's day was a big deal when I was in elementary school. For days, we would each labor over shoe boxes, trying to create the best Valentine box in our class, or we would work together to create what we thought was a smashingly attractive collective Valentine box which would hold the Valentines for the entire class. This box would then go home with one lucky winner after the big day. What anyone would want with it, I don't know, but we all considered it an honor to win it. Before the big day, I'd carefully match up the size and sentiment of each Valentine with the message I wanted to send to each child in my class in school. Those I liked or especially wanted to impress got the big Valentines with the gooiest sentiment.

My first memory of receiving a "special" Valentine happened in third grade. One boy told me he was giving me the best Valentine in the package. I was sorely disappointed when I opened it, as I thought one received by another girl was better. My views about this boy changed significantly when I was in high school. Once when he came to my home unannounced, I jumped out of my window to pretend I wasn't home in order to avoid seeing him (it was a one story house).

My other Valentine story happened when I was a sophomore in college. I had recently started dating my now-husband (the inimitable Ed Kuhlman) and we were discussing Valentine's day. I offered my opinion that I really disliked those chintzy heart-shaped boxes filled with chocolate. Later that day he offered me his heart-felt expression of love. You guessed it--one of those chintzy heart-shaped boxes I had just dissed, purchased before I'd put my foot in my mouth. I still have the box which now holds mementos from our long relationship. We'll be married 40 years this September. He still buys me chocolate, but not in heart-shaped boxes.

My first memorable valentine was in early grade school (I'd like to say first grade but, criminy, I was only 5 at the time). In any case I somehow cajoled my mom into buying me a small heart shaped box of chocolates to give to some now unknown girl. By 12th grade I finally got over being more or less ignored after that first tentative reaching out to the other half of our species. Maybe that explains why my son refers to this as "JAHH" (just another hallmark holiday), though I think his wife has cured him of his lack of sentimentality.