Mountain Musing

St. Valentine's Day has always been a bigger thing with me than with my wife of fifty-eight years. To me, Valentine's means something personal, something special. With the girl next door he gave me that same tuning fork feeling in my chest when she was sixteen as happens now six decades later.

I've already ordered her orchid corsage, which will make the 57th Valentine's orchid she's received during our 58 years of marriage. For the last few years she's countered with a fancy candlelight dinner before our fireplace--which makes the entire affair cozy and intimate. This year, however, she became enthralled with a restaurant biilboard ad offering prime rib and crablegs on cupid's day at a price she couldn't touch. And being the frugal housewife she is, intimacy went out the door in the face of affordable finance.

No doubt I'll bear up under the strain of having to save my best sweet nothings 'til we arrive back at the nest. And if I turn cranky in the interim, I trust any friends who might chance by our table will be the understanding sorts.

What makes Valentine's Day so special for me? As opposed to say our anniversary or Mother's Day (also orchid corsage events)?

Easy. Our anniversary arrives in November--hunting season! And Mother's Day falls at the same time grizzly bears are emerging from hibernation. Thus, I'm distracted. What's going on around Valentine's Day?

Nothing as important as the sweet nothings she whispers back.!