I hate(d) Valentine’s Day

“It’s just another florist holiday — or perhaps a Hershey holiday.” My family got very used to my complaining about what I felt was a false excuse for the commercialization of a supposed saint of love, but recently, I have begun to feel that I was perhaps very wrong indeed.

First of all, I love history. If I could do my schooling all over again, I’d pay more attention to Mr. Cobb and his passion as a history teacher. Of course, he was hampered by the need to cram dates and facts into our steel-trap minds — but once a week, he would dust off a series of books called “They Saw It Happen” (which my wife found and presented to me some years ago) and read to us live accounts of major moments in history. Unfortunately, he never had a witness to the origination of Valentine’s Day.

Back in Roman times (you remember that Rome was founded by two kids raised by a she wolf, don’t you?), the Romans felt that their city needed to rid itself of the evils of winter and perhaps get more fertile. They appointed priests called Luperci (lupus being Latin for wolf) to perform a festival, Lupercalia, that caused people to celebrate the advent of spring (spring always equals fertility) and, in so doing, cleanse the city of built-up winter bad spirits (and refuse, human and animal). Presumably this also involved cleaning the house and streets — as you would for any outdoor festival — so a sort of spring cleaning was achieved, emotionally and physically. Religions have a lot of good ideas built into festivals and such. Anyway, by the time the early Christian church took over pagan rituals (you remember that burning a tree to bring back the sun was turned into Christmas, right?), in the third century the pagans killed one (or two or three called Valentinius — historians are still arguing about this) named Valentine. Later on the church sought to memorialize this fellow Valentine, picked the Lupercalia as a holiday they needed to absorb and, presto, created St. Valentine’s Day.

Now, to be fair, Valentinius, later St. Valentine (whether he was one man or three doesn’t matter) was a martyr to his faith, and his faith was that of Christ (turn the other cheek, help the poor, brotherly love and so forth). So what was more natural than to create a St. Valentine’s Day celebration to be one of love toward your fellow man and woman? Of course, the Roman god Cupid got swept up into this non-pagan festivity, but what’s another love angel between friends? “He can stay” seems to be the official position, even though his real role wasn’t love as much as sexual desire at the point of an arrow. Oh, well, love by any other means…

Of course, today we commercialize the festival with food. Why do food and love, food and sex always seem to be sold as a package? Anyway, flowers are a great gift idea, but plants are better. After all, if you want to tell your certain someone that you’ll love them for a long time, why give flowers that wilt so fast? I guess chocolate is a more enduring Valentine’s gift — let’s not talk about where the proof of those calories will exhibit long-term love. Of course, the best Valentine’s gift is still the tradition started in America in the 1700s — that anonymous card signed “From Your Valentine” that titillates, provides a keepsake and, above all, lets the recipient have proof that someone, somewhere loves them.

In the end, it’s really all about love.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.