Be Mine

Are you missing your Sweethearts?

I am not referring to that elementary school classmate who stole your heart before lunch and threatened to not give it back until after recess.  I am referring to those chalky, pastel colored, mini hearts with the tame love phrases imprinted on the front. 

Recently I was aimlessly pushing a cart through our local grocery store when I spotted a friend perusing the Valentine candy aisle. I stopped and chatted for a moment and was nearing a clean getaway when they caught my eye.  Hidden there between seventy-two varieties of Reese’s Peanut Butter Hearts (is Chunky really a description you want included on your Valentine candy?) was the display from my childhood.   Sweethearts.  Based on pleasant memories of a childhood filled with sugar highs, I quickly bought a few boxes.

Back in the day, just prior to the Valentines celebration, my elementary school teacher would supply each student with a white paper lunch sack, a supply of red and pink construction paper, one pair of extremely dull scissors, and a tub of wipe-on paste to attach the heart shaped creations to the sack.  On the nearest school day to Valentine’s Day, students would share a Valentine card with each of the other students in our class by dropping a card in those elaborately decorated sacks.  Very often, the cards would be attached to a small box of Sweethearts.  Be Mine and True Love were boldly printed on the hearts. 

But I digress…back to the current day, I took my purchase, hopped in my truck and immediately opened a box of Sweethearts.   Much to my dismay I noticed that the print size on Sweethearts had apparently been diminished in the last fifty years due to my inability to make out the phrases at all on the first three mini hearts out of the box.   Heart number four was legible, but I had to look twice…Text Me was printed there.  Goodness, times have changed. 

It reminded me that today’s kids probably don’t get white paper sacks and construction paper from educators.  I am fairly certain that wipe-on paste met its demise sometime before 1970 and sharing candy at school seems an unlikely occurrence.  I suppose that digitally creating a Valentine for classmates and electronically sharing said creation is more likely and thus the imprinted candy message…Text Me.  

Call me old fashioned, but there is something special about chalky, pastel-colored mini hearts filling your white paper lunch sack, the unforgettable smell of wipe-on paste, and the ever-hopeful feeling that True Love would last through recess.  It was a simpler time and I hope that today’s children can create and hold onto fond memories as well.

As for me, I will hold onto these memories and pull them out for review each February as I sample some Sweethearts.  After all, those memories will always Be Mine. 

Happy Valentine’s Day.  Thanks for listening!

Your friend,

KBM

Kevin Medlin
kevin@mysilentpew.com