This is a story about my first Valentine's Card that I received in a country and time period where Valentine's Day was a little different than it is in North America.
Back then, Valentine's Day was a day of excitement and secrecy. It was meant for teenagers and those grown-ups who still an ounce of romance left in their souls. Weeks beforehand you had made or bought a special card that you would secretly deliver to that boy (or girl) of your dreams! Did they know that you felt that way about them? Probably not! And they wouldn't find out easily, because you wouldn't actually sign the card.
The "popular" girls and boys always seemed to walk into school with a certain confidence about them on Valentine's Day. They expected that they would receive many mysterious envelopes that day. They had told their best friends whom they were sending cards to and they generally had a list longer than last week's spelling test to work with. My best friend and I didn't have our hopes too high as far as receiving an abundance of cards went. We had already sent ours - two in one envelope to Prince Andrew who was our crush of the year! We had high hopes Clare and I! Although there were boys we liked in our class, we figured that there was no way our feelings would be returned so why bother? We chose to send our feelings to someone we knew we had no hope of really reaching. That way we could not be disappointed if we didn't receive a card in return. The psychology of teenage girls! So, that Valentines Day morning back in the 1970's,we wandered into school with no great expectations in mind - none that we were admitting to anyway!
The bell rang for assembly and leaving our books lined up outside the room, we went to the big hall for the morning service. Once that was over we headed for class. We didn't waste time, as the history teacher was not known for her tolerance of tardiness! One by one we filed in and placed out books on the desk. We sat and the teacher entered and asked us to open our textbooks. I did as she said, and upon opening my book, the pages fell open at a spot where an envelope had been tucked into the pages of that day's lesson. I quickly slipped it a few pages on. I noticed that the envelope had my name on it - well, my name with a slight variation in the spelling. I didn't dare try and open it, as the teacher would have made me read it to the entire class if she had caught me. I tried to get Clare's attention. She wouldn't look at me and I had to continue to pretend working for the rest of the class while all I wanted to do was run somewhere private and open the card.
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