Love, Letters, and Lore: St. Valentine's Day

"Whenever you don't get a pun, you should just put it in single quotation
marks and point at a bird until you do. And if it's possible, stuff your
massive cankles into a pair of spats, then call it a day." -Karen Horton

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day. Everybody’s favorite right?

However, the usually gag-worthy holiday got me thinking about letter writing, the post, and of course Valentine’s day cards. It seems to me this act of exchanging written notes is especially important to this holiday, in ways it isn’t so much on St. Patrick’s Day, Halloween, or Easter. Part of this probably has to do with the story behind the holiday of St. Valentine’s Day. According to popular legend, Emperor Claudius II waged several bloody wars with his Roman army. However, he was having trouble finding eager recruits because many of the young men were not keen on leaving their wives and girlfriends. In order to free the men up from their romantic sweeties and get them fighting for him, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome!(Imagine our president standing up and cancelling all martial statuses so that we could all focus more on the national debt) Lucky for the soldiers though, the romantic and rebellious priest Valentine began marrying couples in secret. He was caught, brutally beaten and put to death February 14^th. Pretty morbid for day we now celebrate with candy and hearts. But why the letters? Why the notes? Well, one version of the legend recounts that when he was in prison, couples he had married came back and left him letters of appreciation. Another more far-fetched version claims that he fell in love with his jailor’s daughter signing a love letter to her with, “Your Valentine”. Whether or not either of these stories is true is far beside the point, because someone America at least believed them at some point and from these stories we have our own traditions of letter writing on Valentine's Day.

"Oh, is he the one who carries a purse to school? And wears daisy duke shorts,
even though it's in the 30s? Yeah, no thanks." -Howie Luvzus

I really enjoy cards, hokey as they often are (though maybe not these vintage ones so much). All these cards did get me thinking about the post, and modern communication. An English teacher of mine in high school made the audacious prediction that the post will cease to excist, or be of use in the near future. I certainly hope not. Though many of us may find it difficult to pick up a pen and paper and write their thoughts down fluently, clearly, and wittily (I certainly struggle) I hope people keep trying at this dying art of letter writing, because it’s the only way you can hold someone’s thoughts, well-wishes, and the actual letters which have been strung together in love in your hands.