My Mother made a Valentine for my Father every Valentine's Day, and placed it on his dinner plate. Inside the Valentine my Mother composed a poem for my Father. Now you may think how sweet, how tender, how romantic, how loving…. and all that is true. But my Mother's Valentine poetry to my Father had to do with an incident that happened before they were married.
(Photo: Nancy Puzzle Purse Valentines.) Click on link to find out how to make your own.)
When my Mother was nineteen or so, she loved to jitterbug at the Grange Hall in Bayliss. My Father, a dashing guy with a red convertible asked my mother to the Valentine's dance. My Mother being (and still is) a tease said she already had a date. My Father knowing her teasing ways laughed, "Right, you do. So I'll pick you up at eight and don't be late!" My Mother pursed her lips, tilted her head to her shoulder, waved her finger and said, "Don't bother, I'll already be there with my date."
My Father laughed and drove home to milk the cows.
After tending to the milking, my Father drove to pick up my mom in his red convertible, next to him on the seat was a heart shaped box full of chocolates.
He sat on the couch while waiting for my Mother, and talked to her sister (my Aunt Frannie)… Later he would say, "Gee, Dolores is running late isn't she?" Only to be told, and my Aunt Frannie had to tell him several times cause he didn't believe her, that my Mother was already at the dance with another guy.
"Oh that tease!! The Stinker! The Hefer!" (A favorite nickname that I wish I could hear my Father say to my Mother now…)
(Photo: Dolled up Valentine's over at Such Pretty Things, vintage Valentine's.)
As my Father drove off, he tossed the Valentine box of chocolates out of the car.
Later he would say, "When I saw the Valentine chocolates from my rear view mirror, be-bopping ever which way along the pavement I thought to myself, That was dumb. Those were good chocolates."
Growing up I remember the homemade Valentine's my Mother made for my Father. The poems she wrote were funny, they told the tale of their Valentine Tango long ago: The tease, the date that wasn't, the tossed chocolates, then she would write how she loved him and hoped he would bring her chocolates again on Valentine's.
Which he never did…. That Valentine Tease!
After dinner my Mother would take the Valentine poem, placing it in her red-checked Betty Crocker cookbook.
Do you have a Valentine story?
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