I’m a guy.
That’s what it says on my birth certificate anyway, and arguing with an official looking document from the hospital is akin to arguing with the IRS that the 1040 EZ is too complicated. I like baseball, fishing, chainsaws, and have never watched an entire episode of Sex in the City. I’m a guy.
Recently passed, my fellow residents of Northeast Ohio, was the holiday known as Valentine’s Day. In our humble household, we put the Valentine’s Day tree up, carved a giant snowball, and put a candle in it (a disappointing custom if I ever heard of one), hid chocolate Valentines throughout the snow covered yard (dental bill of four hundred dollars for chipped teeth on frozen hearts), and went door to door singing love songs to our neighbors. We don’t get invited to a lot of block parties and the like…I think our neighbors are just so envious of us.
Okay, just kidding folks, excepting the part about hiding chocolate hearts (I’ll find them with the mower come spring). But really, what in the world is the deal with Valentine’s Day? Was it created by a sadistic, unmarried Monk who merely wanted to watch his married counterparts amble along zombie-like into flower shops with fifty dollar bills at the ready? Did he have holding in a chocolate factory? Was he on the board at Hallmark, Inc.?
Hold on…I bet it was a woman…that explains it. Mystery solved by some bald guy in Ohio America…St. Valentine’s was a woman who hated men because of some displaced love early in her life that wasn’t reciprocated. Someone contact Lifetime pronto; I’ll have the script ready by July (background singing of “I’m in the money” appropriate now).
All right, all kidding aside, Valentine’s Day really came about because of the Romans. And ain’t that just the way it goes…first they allow Jesus to be killed, and then they bring about the holiday of Valentine’s Day? Thanks a lot, Emperor Claudius II – bet you were a swell fella.
Sorry ‘bout that folks….
Where did Valentine’s Day come from?
It was around the end of the 3rd Century that Emperor Claudius II created a decree based on his belief that single men make better soldiers. His decree ended the practice of marrying by young men until after their military service was over; hence the earliest known long distance relationships were formed. But, the good guy in all this was a priest named Valentine. He secretly married these young lovers against the decree, and therefore was thought of as the Saint of Love (there’s a movie in here someplace, too, but I’m a little busy with the idea of the baby with the quite deadly bow being a ‘she’ right now).
Now the question becomes…why does Valentine’s Day fall in the middle of February? It would be significantly more romantic if Valentine had done his noble deed around the middle of June when my Valentine’s Day stroll with my wife didn’t end in a hospital visit for hypothermia.
Well….seems there was a holiday around the middle of February already, but it went against the new Christian ideas of the Romans. It was called Lupercalia, and it was dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture; Faunus. On Lupercalia (say this five times real quick for a little tongue treat), a goat and a dog would be sacrificed to the afore mentioned god. Once the bloodletting was done, the goat’s hide would be torn into strips, and these strips would be gently slapped against the ground where crops were going to be planted. It was felt that this particular activity would make the ground more fertile. These strips were also slapped gently against the eager young ladies (I can’t make this stuff up folks, history is history) who lined up to be slapped with fertility. Once this horrendous activity (word ‘horrendous’ added by author, as opposed to soft giggle) was completed, the young women would all put their names in an urn. The young men of the village would then draw the names, and that young lady was your companion for the upcoming year.
And can you believe this holiday was replaced by Valentine’s Day? No wonder the Roman Empire ended in ruin.
It was the philosopher Brad Paisley who said, “When you see a deer you see Bambi, and I see antlers up on the wall.” Could there be a holiday that more amply defines the differences between men and women than Valentine’s Day? Brad would have agreed with the notion that men need to express their affections on February 14…and he probably would have done so by buying his wife a new vacuum because the old one ain’t picking up like it used to.
Just remember gentlemen, the gift(s) you buy for your sweetheart should not be based on the duration of the relationship prior to February 14. They should be based on how long you’d like the duration to be after February 14…..