Valentine’s Day makes me think of a couple of Willie Nelson warbles that I like a lot. One is “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” the other is “You Were Always on My Mind” Okay, not ALL the girls I’ve loved before are ALWAYS on my mind, but many of them are quite often. I ain’t part Italian for nothing you know? Do the rest of you guys remember all the girls you loved before?
Probably the first girl I ever loved was Winona. We were in the first grade together in Quincy, California. I loved Winona a lot and down through the years she’s been on my mind many times; I wonder what ever happened to her. One time, our class was studying about Hawaii. Our teacher decided we should hold a real, genuine luau with poi, pineapple and pig. I got so excited. All week before the big event I anticipated sitting on the floor next to Winona, dipping into the poi with her. I decided to wear my new Roy Rogers fringed cowboy shirt that day.
Alas, over the weekend I came down with chicken pox. My mother absolutely refused to let me go to school on Monday and for the longest time she WAS NOT one of the girls I loved. The problem was this kid named Alvin who owned a Roy Rogers shirt just like mine and also was sweet on Winona. I knew he was going to take advantage of me not being at the luau, and of course later on a buddy of mine told me how Alvin had moved in on my girl. My hatred for Alvin would have burned red hot for ever after that if my family hadn’t moved out of town midway through the second grade. I bet Alvin married Winona and they had 12 kids or something! Dang!
I got kinda’ hung up on Donna in the sixth grade too, even prayed once that God would make her permanently mine. But he didn’t. Donna wasn’t hung up on me but Janice was and so I asked Janice to go steady. Janice and I never kissed or anything, but I did give her a cheap necklace (that might have come in my Cracker Jacks) to seal our love pledge.
I feel sorry for poor Charlie Brown, sitting by the mailbox waiting to receive valentines. Poor guy. We used to decorate shoeboxes for valentines at school and put the boxes where people could anonymously drop cards into them. It was always so exciting to open my box up to find a bunch of valentines and to see whom they were from. Of course I always checked out how many cards other guy classmates received from the girls. I was jealous if one guy received more cards than me. Then there was the great guessing game I engaged in. Attempting to read between the lines I always perused cards from certain girls for hidden hints that she was smitten with me.
Nowadays I confess though that I feel sort of like that Tina Turner song, “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” regarding Valentine’s Day. Just share you candy with me honey and I’ll be sure to keep a spot in my heart for you.
Say! What was your name again?
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