So.  Valentines Day.  Mixed messages from my heart on this day.  

I think of the years of Valentine boxes at school....paper covered cereal boxes, decorated with doilies and red construction paper hearts.  The little "penny" valentines that were selected so that everyone in the class got one.  And when you put them in, sometimes even in the box of your worst enemy, you felt a little better toward them.

 Then there were the teachers who didn't care if you put valentines in everyone's box.  That was the worst.  Since I was a bit off the beaten path of normal, I didn't get the most valentines.  Sometimes, I didn't get many at all.  I was very sad when that happened.

In fifth grade, I got a BIG valentine from Terry Billam who had always had a girlfriend for Valentines Day.  Except the girlfriend he had always had since the first grade was...Rita Hollowman, a flashy red-head already getting a flirtaceous smile.  This thrilled me, but immediately caused me problems with Rita because I had "stolen" her boyfriend.  Of course, I only knew Terry from class and the playground where we were always playing games that I made up like Spider & Fly where the chainlink fence was the web, and half the kids were Spiders, and the other half were Flies.  The Spiders tried to catch the Flies and attach them to the Web, and the Flies tried to  get to the other Flies and free them without getting caught by the Spiders.  (I did make this up didn't I, or is the a regular kids game???)  

 So anyway, Rita was mad at me and someone told me at recess that she was looking for me.  Ack.  She had a reputation for having a hot temper and not being afraid to get into fights.  I only fought with my brothers, and then I always won because I was the oldest.  So, I did the reasonable thing.  I hid out on the other side of the building all during recess.  It was sunny and warm against the brick.  She found me anyway, and there were no teachers on this side to protect me.  She pinned me up against the brick and growled in my face, closer and closer.  I squirmed and broke away from her and ran back to the playground with her right on my heels, and my little friend Wilma close behind.  She caught up with me in the middle of the asphalt playground and grabbed my arm twisting it around and flinging me against the huge cement wall on the west side of the playground.  OUCH!  There was shouting, "Girl-fight, girl-fight,girl-fight" and we were surrounded by yelling kids.  I was pinned, again, and my friend Wilma was being held back by a bigger girl, as if tiny Wilma could have helped me anyway!   I was upset and nervous and....I laughed.  I laughed in the furious Rita Hollowman's face.  It turned redder than her hair.  She pulled her fist back to hit me, and it was caught by a teacher.   The fight was broken up, and both of us were marched into the counselor's office at West Elementary School with the teacher's firm grip on our arms.  

 I was mortified.  We were in separate rooms, and got our "talking to."  I had never, ever been in trouble at school.  I was a studious 'good girl.'  I am the one who always did everything the teacher said, before she said it, except for the occasional sneak-reading a book under my desk while listening to the teacher lecture on something.  Rita was chastised, and apparently went back to class.  I refused to move.  I would NOT go back into class when everyone knew I had done something wrong.  The counselor begged, cajoled, and pleaded.  I laid down on the sick cot and would not move.  Finally they called my mother, who talked to me on the phone.  I don't know what she said, but I did go back to class after the afternoon recess.  But I wouldn't look at anyone.  

 I broke up with Rita's boyfriend, but he didn't go back to her.  He still played Spider and Fly with me.  He was pretty nice.   I even saw him a few years later at a High School Speech Contest in Emporia Kansas.  He was thrilled to see me, and we had a great time talking.  We both liked drama, and were both very good at it.  I got second for my "Lady MacBeth," and he got an award for something else, maybe "Horton Hatches the Egg?"  

 So Valentine's Day?  Good and bad.  But mostly good.  Because it's a time when you can give pretty hearts and candy to all the people you really care about, sending Valentine's Day cards instead of Christmas cards.  Because it says "Love," and asks for nothing in return.  

But a little candy never hurts...