February 14, 2018
8:12 p.m.

Ah....to have reached an age where no kids come running to me to help make a Valentine mailbox! Whew!

Although, honestly, I might be better at it now than I used to be.

Oddly enough, there was no school today for my grandson--parent teacher conferences. He missed every day last week, and his cold/headache/yuck has now been passed to grandma. Whoopee!

What I'm getting at is, he didn't exchange valentines with his classmates. They also didn't have a Christmas program, or lunch with mom on Thanksgiving or trick-or-treats. I don't know what the deal is with this situation. Probably funding. Small school, poor neighborhood.

That's kind of sad, right?

Kids need art and music programs!! This is not cool.
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I believe I should give you all a gift for Valentine's Day. It's not a big, long story, just an evening with my character, Emma, her family, a ghost and a history lesson. 

Here it is:

Valentine Knights

A Valentine Vignette by Paula Shablo

Sunday, February 8, 1970

While the children ran to change from church attire to weekend grubbies, Jill Knight cleared the dining room table, putting the dishes and platters from Sunday dinner into the deep double sink. She returned to the room, washed the table and then turned at the sound of the door opening.

Jack came in from the garage with his arms loaded with a strange assortment of items: shoe boxes, construction paper, ribbon and yarn. He had a paper bag tucked under one arm. Barely arriving at the table before dropping something, he plopped his goods down and began dividing them into four separate piles.

“Remember the good old days when only one child was in school?” Jill giggled.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack grinned. “Last week, wasn’t it?”

“Seems like it,” Jill agreed. She went back into the kitchen.

Jack pulled a couple of pots of school paste and jars of glitter out of the paper bag and set them in the center of the table.

Jill came back with a plastic table cloth. “Look what we forgot,” she said.

Jack groaned. “Do I gotta?” he pleaded.

“You gotta,” Jill commanded, and giggled again.

Jack started moving things.

Moments later, with the table cloth in place and each child’s work station equipped with art supplies, work was ready to commence.

Emma wasn’t fussed about Valentine’s Day per se, but she never minded an art project. “What are we making, Mama?” the ten-year-old asked. She already knew, but figured an explanation for the younger siblings might be in order.

Nine-year-old Melody sang, “I’m wishing for some Valentines in boxes we make!” to the tune of Disney’s Snow White’s song “I’m wishing for someone I love”.

“That’s sweet, Mel,” Emma said.

Melody curtsied. “Why, thank you very much!”

Dana eyed the art supplies dubiously. She was seven, and skeptical of any project involving glue. She did not like to dirty her hands.

Six-year old Matthew frowned deeply and declared, “Balentines is stupid! I hate girls!”

“Tough,” Jill told him. “Your teachers have sent notes home with instructions that say you are all to make Valentine mail boxes for your party on Friday.”

“Phooey ka-pooey!” Matthew scoffed.

“And I got a list of the names of everyone in your classes,” Jill continued, undaunted by her son’s distain. “You’ll be giving valentines to everyone in your class.”

Emma gasped. “But Mama!” she cried. “I can’t be giving a valentine to Bobby Robbins! He’s a twerp!”

“Emma!”

“He is, Mama!” Melody agreed. “He stole Matt’s Tonka truck and wouldn’t give it back until Emma gave him a kiss!”

“Melody!” Emma shouted. “You promised!”

“Oops! Sorry!” Melody looked crestfallen. “I just don’t want you to give him no valentine.”

“I’m not!”

“He did what?” Jack demanded.

“Nothing!” Emma cried.

“I might have to kick his butt,” Jack grumbled.

Dana giggled. “His butt,” she said. “Butt, butt, butt.”

“That will do, young lady,” Jill scolded. “Why didn’t you tell us, Emma?”

“Cuz I can do my own butt-kicking when the time comes,” Emma declared. “And he is not getting a valentine from me, Mom!”

“Well,” Jill drawled, “the notes say that all children are to receive a valentine from each of their classmates—”

“Mom!”

“But, in this case, I’m not going to force you to do it.”

Emma breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Mama!”

Jack shook his head. “Little blackmailing sh—” he started.

“Jack!” Jill warned.

All four children giggled. They were not unfamiliar with the word their father had started to say. There were no saints in the Knight household, try as they might.

The children sat at their places. “Emma,” Matthew said, “will you cut hearts for me? Please, pretty please?”

“Sure, buddy,” Emma agreed. “Hand me some paper, Matt.”

Soon enough Emma had all the pink and red construction paper. She was the oldest and the most adept with the scissors. She folded and cut out hearts of various sizes and piled them in the middle of the table for all of them to share.

“Are schools still insisting on promoting this nonsense?”

Emma looked up. Behind her father stood a short, chubby woman with iron-grey hair pulled back into a fat bun. Loose wisps curled at her temples and neckline. “Oh, hello,” Emma said. “What nonsense?”

“Celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day, of course.” The woman put chubby fists on stout hips and shook her head. “You do know the history, I assume?”

“Um…introductions, maybe?” Emma chided.

“Oh! My dear child, you are quite right.”

The Knight family was at attention by this time. Jill and Jack, who knew many more of the passed-on members of their clans, were particularly interested.

“My name is Marvillosa Lujan.” The woman grinned. “I’m a teacher.”

Emma repeated this, and Jack said, “That’s my Aunt Marvie!”

“I’m not really his aunt.” The woman shrugged. “I’m his father’s niece. When my parents died, I went to live with their family, along with my sister and brother. But we were so much closer in age to the children that we were raised as siblings. So when our aunts and uncle had kids of their own, we were called “aunt” and “uncle” instead of cousin.”

“Like Uncle George,” Emma said.

“Yes. He’s my cousin. Your grandfather’s nephew, really, but George is older. Your Grandpa is quite a bit younger than our mothers—his sisters—were.”

Jack nodded when Emma repeated this information. “Dad had two older half-sisters who were old enough to get married by the time he was getting out of diapers, I imagine,” he mused. “Well, George is about six months older than Dad…no wonder they grew up more like cousins than uncle and nephew!”

“That’s confusing,” Emma complained. “How am I supposed to keep track of that stuff?”

“Write it down,” Aunt Marvie commanded.

Emma blushed.

“What?” Jack demanded, unable to hear any of the exchange that Emma didn’t share.

“She really is a teacher,” Emma said.

“Oh, yeah,” Jack agreed. “A tough one!”

“Hmph!” Aunt Marvie exclaimed. “A good one!”

Without any prompting from Emma, Jack added, “I probably learned more from her than from any other teacher I ever had until college.”

Aunt Marvie nodded with satisfaction. “That’s more like it!”

“What’s your beef with Valentine’s Day?” Emma asked.

“Uh oh,” Jack groaned.

“I don’t have a ‘beef’,” Aunt Marvie said. “I just object to the fact that it’s all hearts and flowers and gushy romance, and not one word about how it all came to be.”

“Like Christmas and Easter,” Melody agreed, once Emma had passed this along.

“Exactly!” Aunt Marvie looked excited. “Oh, Jackie, she’s a smart one!”

“She says you’re smart, Mel,” Emma said.

Melody beamed.

“There’s usually a dark and bloody history to the holidays we celebrate, and Valentine’s Day is no different. Do any of you know the history?”

“Well, obviously, I do,” Jack said, with a smug smile. “I paid attention in Aunt Marvie’s class. Or else!”

Jill smiled. “I never met your Aunt Marvie, but I have no doubt she had her hands full with you, Jack Knight!”

“You can say that again,” Aunt Marvie agreed. “But does no one else know the history of Saint Valentine?”

“Well,” Jill said, “the Sisters told us that he was a Priest who was beheaded for disobeying the law and performing illegal marriages.”

“Very good. Why were they illegal?”

Jill shook her head. “If I ever knew, I have forgotten it now,” she admitted.

Aunt Marvie nodded. “So have many,” she said. “It’s just another holiday now. Another reason to put money into the pockets of rich merchants.”

“Wow!” Emma said. “That’s harsh.”

“Is it? Let me tell you the story. Think of harshness as you listen. Think about how you’d like to remember Saint Valentine in the future.”

Crestfallen, Emma said, “I’m listening. So will we all.”

“Saint Valentine was just a man,” Aunt Marvie said, “a good man who believed in God and in the good Christian church that was becoming stronger in his time. But he was a Roman priest who lived during the reign of the Emperor Claudius II, who was known as Claudius the Cruel.

“The Romans, who were a warrior nation, were always in conflict with one neighbor or another, always building and rebuilding their great empire.

“All this fighting required soldiers, and soldiers were being killed with amazing regularity. As they always are; don’t forget that.

“Emperor Claudius believed that the men were declining to join his armies because they were married with children and cared more for their families than for the cause of adding to the holdings of the Roman Empire. So he authored an edict in all the land: that it would be forbidden for young men to marry. All marriages and engagements were officially cancelled.

“Valentine believed in the sanctity of marriage between a man and one wife only, unlike the majority of Rome’s population, who lived together in sin or practice polygamy—”

“What’s polygamy?” Emma asked, and then added, “Oh, excuse me.”

“Polygamy is when a man has many wives,” Aunt Marvie replied, smiling. “A very good question.”

“Like King David,” Melody said.

Aunt Marvie clapped her hands. “Oh, she’s wonderful! I would have loved to have her in my classes!”

“You’re making a lot of Brownie points, Mel,” Emma said.

“Yes, you’d have made Aunt Marvie a lot happier than I did,” Jack added.

“He can say that again!” Aunt Marvie said, and everyone giggled when Emma passed that on.

“This is all really interesting,” Emma said. “Were people upset that they couldn’t get married?”

“Well, you can just about imagine it, I’m sure,” Aunt Marvie said. “Young people fall in love, and when they are forbidden to be together, why, it only serves to make them want it even more!

“Valentine could no more encourage couples to simply live together in sin than he could tell them to jump off a cliff. The new Christian Church encouraged marriages within the church, and when the edict was passed, Valentine began performing marriages in secret.

“Of course, after a time he was caught and thrown in prison. Claudius the Cruel ordered that he be beaten, stoned and decapitated in punishment.”

“What’s decampingated?” Dana asked.

“Decapitated,” Jill corrected, casting a worried glance at her husband.

“Off with his head!” Melody said. “Like the Red Queen in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ said.”

Dana said, “But no one really did that. Right?” She looked tearful.

“The Red Queen was just an old grouch,” Emma said quickly. “Valentine was a long time ago; he’s dead now, that’s all.”

Aunt Marvie clucked her tongue. “It matters in the wider scheme of things, how he was put to death. But not to such a young child. I’m sorry, this is a distressing tale.”

“Didn’t stop her from telling us when we were six,” Jack said.

“Tell your dad to mind his P’s and Q’s.”

“Dad,” Emma began.

“Never you mind,” Jack said. “I can figure that out on my own.”

Emma had taken crepe paper and twisted it and then glued it around the top edge of the shoe box she had covered first with red wrapping paper. “I don’t know why everything has to be all red and pink and white,” she complained. “I want blue and purple!”

“Purple everything!” Dana agreed.

“Them’s the rules,” Jack grinned.

“Ugh.”

“Can you do that to my box, Emmie?” Matthew begged.

“Not all by myself,” Emma told him. “But if you bring it here, I’ll teach you how and help you.”

“Yay!” the little boy grabbed his box and ran around the table to his “big sissa”.

Jack and Jill helped Melody and Dana with theirs, and Aunt Marvie resumed her story.

“Once Emperor Claudius had had Valentine executed for breaking the law, it was learned by the Church that he had cured the daughter of a prison judge of her blindness, and that man converted.

“Before he died, Valentine wrote a farewell letter to the man’s daughter and signed it ‘From your Valentine’.”

“Oh!” Melody cried. “How sweet! Is that why we send cards to our Valentines?”

“So the legends say,” Aunt Marvie said. “But I feel like it is important to know why Valentine was granted Sainthood after his death, and why there came to be a holiday in the first place.”

“Are she comin’ back to tell stories at Christmas?” Matthew asked.

“Is she,” Jill corrected.

Matthew sighed dramatically. “Is she?”

“Well,” said Aunt Marvie. “You never can tell!”

“Looka my box!” Dana cried, holding it up.

“Wow, that’s so pretty!” Everyone exclaimed. She had folded strips of construction paper and glued hearts on them so they sprang out from the sides of her box.

All the boxes had turned out pretty, and they finished up by decorating the tops and cutting delivery slots into them.

“Thank you for coming, Aunt Marvie,” Emma said, and the whole family echoed her. “That was a great story!”

“It certainly was,” Jill added. “And all the time it took to do this work just flew by. What a wonderful lesson.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Aunt Marvie said, and vanished.

“Happy—well, dang!” said Emma.

“Hmm.” Jack stretched and put his hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. “Tomorrow after dinner you have to write all your cards. I hope someone comes to tell us a story while we do that.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Emma giggled. “I don’t think I can write and listen and talk all at the same time if they do that. Are you going to write my cards?”

“I take it back! I take it back!”

“Let’s get this all cleaned up,” Jill laughed. “It’s almost time for—”

“‘Hee Haw’!” the clan finished.

Sunday evening family time at the Knights.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

The End

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If you have a Valentine, give 'em a hug and have a Happy Valentine's Day!!

Good night!