February is definitely “Love Month” for me, mainly because I married my Smokin’ Hot Wife on February 28th. That is really important, but it is not the first thing I think about when I hear Valentine.
The word Valentine triggers a memory of being in the fourth grade at Hart County Elementary School. I was in Mrs. Kidd’s class, and even as I’m writing this, I can visualize the classroom. A blackboard all the way across the front wall. The ABC’s, each letter on a separate paper both capital and lower case. The other walls had maps and history stuff, along with planets, other stuff you would expect in a school room. Mrs. Kidd’s desk was in the front left corner at the windows.
On the wall next to the blackboard, on three nails hung a reminder that there would be order in Mrs. Kidd’s class. It was her three paddles. All three had names, the largest wood paddle was “Daddy Butts”, the middle-sized one was “Mama Butts” and the one that everyone feared was “Little Blister”. “Little Blister was not wood it had been cut out of a tire and shaped with a handle. There was flexibility with LB, when Mrs. Kidd flipped her wrist at the end of the swing, she got a little extra swing, and velocity. When LB came in contact with your rear end, it was a memorable experience. Yes, this was during that dark time in our history where actions had consequences. When a teacher only told you once to be quiet, or to keep your hands to yourself. But it was very seldom that one of the Butt family members ever actually got used. Having them on display was a gentle reminder to not act like a fool.
Mrs. Kidd was one of my favorite teachers of all time even though “Little Blister” and I got together a few times for therapy sessions. If the infringement called for a paddling, it might not be until the next day, I dressed appropriately the next day by putting on 3 pairs of underwear. That made walking the “Green Mile” out into the hallway a little less stressful. The spanking never took place in the class room, only in the hall with another teacher as a witness.
I’m sure you are wondering what all of that had to do with Valentine’s Day. It was for context.
When we did Valentine’s Day everybody made a heart shaped cardboard “mailbox”. Each student would buy a box of those little Valentine cards with envelopes. The teacher would send home a list of the kids and mom would help me sign each card and put the name on the envelope. We all got a card from each other.
My mom worked at the drug store, and I would read all the funny cards. I got the bright idea to buy some of these cool, funny cards for my closest friends and give the rest of the class the normal ones. When Valentine’s Day came and we put all our cards in each other’s “mailbox”. One of my friends got his large, cool, funny card and showed it to everybody. Now everybody can’t wait to open their cool funny card that I gave them. I had not thought this through. Only a select few got those cards, and the rest were disappointed, and got their feelings hurt. I had not treated them like everyone else. That had not been my intention, but that is what I had done. They did not deserve that. I learned a valuable lesson that day many years ago in Mrs. Kidd’s fourth grade class. How you treat people that are not your best friends, people you do not know, or even people you might only see once and never again matters. They are all people, and you should always be kind.
That is what I always think about on Valentine’s Day.
