Valentine’s Day 1953
"Remember, bring a valentine for each of your classmates," said Miss Jorgensen, our teacher for grades one through four at the two-room school in Wolf Creek, circa 1953. I was in the second grade, along with Melvin, Joyce, and Susan.
“And girls, don’t forget,” she added, “Valentine’s Day is girls-bring-the-lunch day. Pack an extra sandwich to share with a boy. We’ll draw names to decide the pairs.”
At home, I opened my prized 25-cent packet of 15 valentines, meticulously sorting through them. Each card had to fit its recipient. No mushy ones for the boys—Melvin would never let me hear the end of it. But Susan and Joyce? They deserved the mushiest. For Susan, I chose one that said, “My heart falls for you,” hoping she'd catch my not-so-subtle drift.
Valentine's Day arrived, and with it, the moment of truth: the lunch-pair draw. By some miraculous stroke of fate—or maybe teacher's intervention—I ended up with Susan.
“I hope you like tuna salad sandwiches,” she said sweetly as we settled in at her desk for lunch.
I did not. I hated tuna. And mayonnaise. Together, they were an unholy union of flavors I would normally reject with every fiber of my being. But this was Susan.
“I don’t have them very often,” I said, crafting my lie carefully to sound like polite enthusiasm.
Then I ate both halves of that sandwich, forcing down every bite with a smile that could have won an acting award. Big gulps of water helped, though they did little to wash away the lingering taste of sacrifice.
After lunch, we exchanged valentines. I waited until I got home to open mine from Susan, where I could savor the moment in private. Her card was perfect: mushy, adorned with neat second-grade handwriting, and signed with four bold X’s and the words, “I love you.”
I was ecstatic. For about five minutes.
Then reality set in. If my brothers found it, they'd torment me into eternity. I had no choice. Under the cover of evening, I burned the card in the woodstove, watching its romantic embers rise and vanish.
I wondered as I poked the ashes: what kind of person eats tuna salad with a smile and burns a valentine that says “I love you”?
A second grader in love, that’s who.
Wolf Creek School children having lunch on the steps of the old school house. Left to right: Melvin, Russ, Joyce, Mary, Susan, and June. Melvin, Russ, Joyce and Susan were second graders. Mary was in the 3rd grade and June in the first grade. We brought our own lunches to school. Melvin always had a paper bag while the rest of us had lunch boxes. Behind is the Wolf Creek Cemetery.
