Sidetracked Charley

A long time friend of mine, some 40 years, and I were talking about our misspent youth yesterday. Though our lives, even when separated for years, have largely paralleled each other, we have one major divergent path. She got married and stayed married for forty plus years. Longest I have ever stayed married - nine years. But we are both attracted to pirates. So yesterday's coffee was about the pirates in our pasts. And since it was Valentine's Day we discussed that too. Her mate of all those years made a big deal of VDay. To look at my past you would guess that VDay had something to do with victory in Europe during WWII and I was on the losing side. I have only been sent flowers once. The man involved with the nine year marriage and much longer friendship knew to buy my truffles instead; when he remembered. How, one has to ask, can anyone miss Valentines? Trust me it is possible. I never much liked the day to be frank. I blame that on two things 1) Mom and Dad never see...

Valentine's Day is a feast day in honor of the martyred Saint Valentine . . . er 14 saints named Valentine. Oh, and not a feast day since 1969. Not a saint either? Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried at the  Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. Rome? If he died in Rome how did he rid Ireland of snakes? And what does this have to do with love? Off to Wiki: The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine, the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II , known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at thi...