Valentine's Day...It's Really Very Simple

Dear Everyone,
I was just wasting away this Sunday afternoon clogging my mind with endless, unimportant internet tom foolery, when I ran across some accounts of how Valentine's Day got it's beginnings.  Do you know that it started because someone said birds began mating on February 14, so some guy sent a love letter to his woman?  Really, all this because some birds were mating? 
Well, birds or no birds, it got me thinking about being a yound lad and spending hours, cuting, pasting, and  decorating my shoe box with hearts, doilies, tin foil, paper, stickers, valentines, and anything else I could think of (with some help from my mom) and proudly schleping it to school on the bus, where in the afternoon a procession of children would pass by each others desk and drop their declarations of love? into everyone else's box.    From time to time, you would get one that had a lollipop attached (those kids parents must have been rich!), and then you would eat sugar filled treats until the day ended and you schleped the filled "box of love" back onto the bus and home, where you could then, in the privacy of your own room examine each and every one and try to decide whose card was sending you the subliminal message of real, true love.  You know how you picked out the largest cards for the people you REALLY liked, and the non-descript one went to everyone else.   I wonder if kids still do this today?  Do they still get to decorate shoe boxes?  Do they still get to have parties in their classroom?  I'm sure they probably don't because someone's peanut allergy or someone feeling discriminated against because they got a pink valentine instead of a red one,someone who practies hate feels like a holiday devoted to love is completely against their religion,  or any number of ridiculous reasons that people dream up these days.  It makes me sad for the generations of today, they don't know the joy in simple, innocent things.    I remember my Grandma Cleer would send me a Valentine every year in the mail, and in it would be a small square of cardboard with a fifty cent piece taped to it.  I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.    I know, I know, times change....inflation....what's a fifty cent piece?  It's just a reminder that simple things really mean the most. 
So on this Valentine's Day, keep it simple.  Make dinner for someone special.  Send a note of admiration, tell the one's you love how much they mean.....simple as that.
Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!
xo
Greg