Valentine's Day 2011

It's odd how the addition of a word can completely change one's viewpoint. For me, Valentine's Day is the day to celebrate love; the idea which was first introduced by Chaucer and his circle at the English court, to promote the idea of romantic love, and not just sex. I can remember good and bad Valentine's Days - getting a card from someone who I had a crush on, getting messages from my girl friends, and, sometimes, not receiving a card from someone. My parents always made much of the day - Dad would always give Mom flowers and a gift, and Mom would cook one of Dad's favorite meals. My husband and I celebrated by doing a lot of little special things for each other...

But add the word "Saint" to Valentine's Day, and I think of several different things. There are 14 Saints named Valentine that the Catholics revere - the three main Saints named Valentine were all martyrs for the Church. Most people know of the "original" Saint Valentine, who was a Christian priest in Rome: he married Christian couples and preached God's love. He was brought before the Roman Emperor Claudius (II) Gothicus, who found that he actually liked the man. Valentine lived with the Emperor for some time, but then tried to convert Claudius to Christianity. He was sentenced to be stoned to death. When he failed to die from the public stoning, he was beheaded. This happened between 269 and 273 in Rome. - But what seems to immediately spring into my mind, when someone says Saint Valentine's Day, is the follow-up word of "Massacre." Eighty-two years ago today, the Massacre occurred in Chicago, on the North side of town. At that time, Prohibition was an on-going joke and the two main gangs in Chicago were Al Capone's South side Italians, and Bugs Moran's North side Irish gang. On the 14th of February, several witnesses saw 7 men being taken into a garage by a group of men. The men who seemed to be in charge were two men wearing Crestview Police uniforms, and several other men wearing long coats known as dusters. The seven men who were taken into the garage were five members of Bugs Moran's gang, plus two non-members. They were shot down in a hail of machine gun bullets. When others arrived, Frank Gusenberg, who had 14 bullet holes in his body, was asked, "Who shot you?" Gusenberg, a member of the Moran gang, said, "Nobody shot me." What an idiot!

In any event, today is a day to do something special for the one you love. I've spent the morning with Lucy, and will soon walk Rosie and Remy. After cleaning the house, to remove traces of my residence, I'll return home to Lovey and Nedi. My time with them this afternoon and evening will be my Valentine's gift to myself. (And watching IBM's Watson computer on Jeopardy! will also make the day.)