My Mother made a Valentine
for my Father every Valentine's Day,
and placed it on his dinner plate.
The handmade Valentine would included a poem she had composed 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.
Long long time ago when my Mother was a mere babe in the country, yet danced a mean jitterbug at the Grange Hall in Bayliss... my Father, a dashing guy with a red convertible asked my mother to a Valentine dance. My Mother being (and still is) a tease said she already had a date. My Father knowing her teasing ways laughed and said, "Right, you do. So I'll pick you up at eight and don't be late!" He teased her back. 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 another date."
My Father laughed and drove home to milk the cows.
My Mother did not have a date... and my Father knew that. But as her teasing-lucky-stars-above-her-sweet-head-would-have-it, a boy called and asked her to the dance. She couldn't say yes fast enough.... and squealed as she raced to get dress and out of the house before my Father came back to pick her up.
After milking at his family's dairy my Father drove up in his red convertible, with a extra large heart shaped box of chocolates. He sat on the couch while waiting for my Mother, keeping up a conversation with her sister (my Aunt Frannie)... As the clock ticked away, my Father grew concerned and asked, "Gee, Dolores is running late isn't she?" Only to be told, and told again and again because he didn't believe it, 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...) As my Father drove off, he threw the Valentine box of chocolates out of the car. Later he would tell us that when he saw the Valentine chocolates from his rear view mirror, be-bopping along the pavement he thought to himself, "That was dumb. Those were good chocolates."
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....
Which he never did...
