Valentine's Day

I know it's not Valentine's Day, but I wanted to report on Valentine's Day and also to comment on February 15th which is not Valentine's day, but you probably know this.

"It's Valentine's Day. We should probably buy ourselves something," I said to Tom

"What should we buy?"

"A box of chocolates."

"Sounds good to me."

So we got into the old Avalon and drove to Cummings where, believe it or not, there was a policeman giving us directions in and out of the parking lot. He was not a nice policeman either. Evidently, we drove into the exit instead of the entrance. We have always driven into the Cummings parking lot from 7th East and have never had a problem, but on this day we

were committing a felony.

"Back out!" the policeman roared. "I said, back out! Back out!"

Well, excusez-moi, you unpleasant, squat little man in your big leather boots and your big fancy 9mm Swiss & Wesson pistol. You gonna shoot the old folks dead on Valentine's Day?

"Who needs candy?" I said.

"We do," Tom said.

So we drove into the entrance on the 9th South side and were immediately blessed with a handicpapped parking place. I stayed in the car, because I can never walk away from Terry Gross on NPR.

Tom came out with a pound of chocolates which we mostly ate that very day except for the few that we had for breakfast this morning.

That evening, we decided we wanted to go dancing. I'm a cripple, but it's one of God's miracles to see me dance to a live orchestra. So, at eight 'o clock in the evening we left for Sam and Sarah's ward, but when we got there it was dark as a . . .a . . .a very dark thing. So we headed to Neil and Marilyn's ward, because we knew they too were having a Valentine's Dance. Their ward was also dark as a very dark thing.

"Let's skip it," I said.

"No, we'll go home and call Sam. We'll still have an hour to dance."

We went home. I waited in the car in the underground parking lot waiting to be murdered by a

serial killer while listening to jazz. (I've been watching way too much criminal minds).

Tom returned. "We don't have events on Monday nights. Those dances were on Saturday night, but Sam and Sarah are on their way with Valentines.

And sure enough, they and Elliot and Louis showed up a few minutes later with lovely handmade valentines and a sucker for each of us.

We played "Sorry" and shmoozed. A good Valentine's Day in all.

But TODAY is FEBRUARY 15th, which is the day Tom and I were engaged. He wrote me a short and ironic history of our courtship and gave me a ring. I jumped up and down and said, "We're engaged; we're engaged!"

That was 47 years ago when we were young and fresh, and life was rolling out in front of us like a red carpet, and I could still jump up and down. We ate dinner at the Lamplighter on Foothill Blvd. and when the waiter picked up my plate, there was a residue of peas in a careful circle on the white table cloth where my plate had been.