Will You Be My Valentine?

And by that, I mean are you willing to get beaten and stoned to death, and if that doesn’t do the trick, get beheaded under orders from Emperor Claudius Gothicus of Rome? That’s exactly what happened to that romantic martyr of yesteryear, St. Valentine! Okay, I admit it—I’m not a big fan of this or any other organized holiday that tells us how we’re supposed to treat our loved ones, especially when they're founded in collusion with corporate America. The story of the original St. Valentine is a ghastly one indeed. No one’s sure exactly how the candy-coated holiday in his honor developed. 18th century scholars thought it was based on the Pagan holiday of Lupercalia, the ancient Roman festival observed on February 14th that was supposed to purify the city and encourage fertility. The Roman historian Plutarch described Lupercalia this way:

At this time many of the noble youths run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. Women of rank purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery and the barren to pregnancy.

What fun! Sounds like a typical night in West Hollywood! Kendall is now in her fourth month of pregnancy. Is it too soon to take her out tonight to have her hands struck by naked marauding youths? The festival of Lupercalia was in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus (clearly the names we should use for our twins!).

Lupercalia always began with the sacrifice of two male goats and a dog. That was followed by a feast, after which the aforementioned “noble youths” cut thongs from the skins of the victims and ran around the walls of the old city with the thongs in their hands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on the route to receive lashes from these whips. Oh, those madcap Romans! They truly believed these lashings would ease the pain of childbirth so I think it’s worth a try!

More recent scholars question the connection of Valentine’s Day to Lupercalia and believe that the red and pink holiday had its origins in the 14th century and was invented by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle. That’s when the feast day of St. Valentine first become associated in any way with romantic love.

Who knows? I don’t have a lot of memories of Valentine’s Day, and the ones I do have always seem cloaked in trauma. Will I get any Valentines? Should I give a Valentine to that girl I like? What if she doesn’t give me one back? For some reason I have a distinct memory of Valentine’s Day 1968. I was in 4th grade at Peterson School in Chicago and I had a mad crush on a girl named Nandia Black. What kind of Valentine should I give her? Should I make my own heart-shaped card out of construction paper or would that be too much? Should I attach one of those edible hearts that say “Be mine?” Was I crazy to be giving her a Valentine at all—we were in 4th grade, not 1st, and I didn’t want to appear too uncool. 

February 1968 was hardly an innocent time in this country. The Vietnam War was raging. Martin Luther King, Jr. would be assassinated in less than two months and Robert Kennedy two months after that. The Democratic National Convention would be held in Chicago that summer and would turn into a violent referendum that would cause a major split in my family. But my biggest concern that month was Nandia Black. I don’t remember which Valentine I finally gave her but I remember dancing on air when she handed me back a simple heart-shaped card. I’m sure she gave one to every kid in our class, but I didn’t care, I was thrilled beyond belief that I was included and I can still visualize the “To Daniel, from Nandia” written in pencil in her perfect Palmer handwriting. Ah, sweet memories.

Did I mention that despite my crush I have no memory of ever actually speaking to Nandia? I had skipped 3rd grade so went right from 2nd grade the year before to this class of new kids. I was already one of the younger kids in my 2nd grade class so now I was practically a toddler compared to the sophisticated 4th graders in Mrs. Shapiro’s class. Talking to girls I had a crush on was not something I learned how to do until some time after Nixon’s resignation. 

This photo is from our class picture that year. That’s nine-year-old me on the right, the shortest boy in the class, standing next to Marty Rosen. Next to Marty is Nandia, in all her exotic beauty, staring at the camera with confidence and poise. To the left of Nandia is Donna Anton, a classmate I didn’t know back then but who will be staying with us next month on a visit from England where she now lives with her husband. Like Nandia, Donna was part of the large Greek-American community at our school (our neighborhood was basically made up of Jews, Swedes, and Greeks from various waves of 20th century immigration) but now I’m wondering if Donna was a closet pagan, celebrating Lupercalia in secret. She was the first, after all, to recently nickname our twins Romulus and Remus. Hmmm.

I have no memory of Nandia Black after 4th grade. Did her family move away or did she just fall off my radar screen after refusing to recognize my undying love for her? To be honest, I haven’t thought of Nandia in over 40 years, but I just googled her and, to my great surprise, instantly found her website. Could it be her? Yep. The dates check out on her bio and her photo certainly evokes that sweet little girl from 1968, my 4th grade Valentine. If her family did move away, I guess it wasn’t too far—today Nandia is a respected lawyer in Chicago, a former assistant state’s attorney. Forgive me, Nandia—no restraining order necessary, I’m just reminiscing!

Tonight my current Valentine and I will be bypassing the heart-shaped candy boxes and rip-off dinners-for-two at local restaurants. Instead we will be attending the perfect Valentine’s Day celebration for us: a double feature at the UCLA Film Archive of appropriately themed Thelma Ritter films. First we'll see “The Model and the Marriage Broker” in which Ritter plays a middle-aged Manhattan matchmaker trying to fix up lingerie model Jeanne Crain, and then “The Mating Season,” which features Thelma as a down-and-out hamburger stand owner who is mistaken for the maid when she goes to visit her son and his high society girlfriend Gene Tierney. Forget the flowers, that’s the way to celebrate the holiday! Any of you die-hard romantics care to join us?

Comments

[Neil]

At least you now know who to call if you ever need an attorney!

[Jane]

I have the same choked memories, in the same grade of 4th. We used to eat all the really corny hearts that said "Love" or "Be Mine" but only after we giddily debated if we should give them to our crushes (mine were Ian Silverburg and Valerie Wooster - I was a confused child). There was always the trauma of not getting the "good" (glittery, funny, or big) cards from classmates, and getting instead only the boring,flat, unfunny ones.

I think you should name the kids after your favorite old movie stars. Or theaters. Like Orpheum and Pantages. Avalon Hollywood and Angel Stadium. ;-)

[Jeff]

How can you be such a curmudgeon about Valentine's day yet have such a sweet memory?

[La Framéricaine]

I love Thelma Ritter, especially in Rear Window! She makes me feel so secure.

Happy Valentine's Day, Danny!

[Arlene]

Danny, leave it to you to bring up 4th grade and Nandia! I was friends with her and was always at her house after school. She still looks beautiful and I'm glad to hear that she is successful lawyer. Hope you had a nice Valentines Day!

[Paula]

I loved "The Mating Season"! How appropriate for you two.

Thanks for the sweet story...

[churlita]

Now THAT'S a Valentine's Day post. I think you covered all of your bases here. I just watched a documentary about what led up to the 1968 Summer Olympics and the Black power salute, so, I was already in the right time frame when I read this.

[Sam]

Someone still needs to talk to their therapist about some repressed memories, of course that just would be my opinion. Or you could be Woody Allen(secretly)and write a movie about your past memories.

[david]

I'm sending this post to my entire Hebrew class, which was wondering about the actual historical figure of St. Valentine.

Your wisdom spreads across the globe!