Life has become so much easier since the arrival of the search engine. In the last ten years we’ve come accustomed to “I’ll google it.”
We wasted all that time learning the Dewey Decimal System, microfilm and microfiche. Research today is just seconds away. “Hey Siri……?”
I butchered so many song lyrics as a kid. When I bought a new album I prayed the song lyrics were on the album jacket. I Googled a forty year old song the other day. I finally know the lyrics to a song I first heard in junior high school.
“I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure
(Love stinks)”
So many things drive us crazy and when we finally figure it out. When we finally “Get it” we scratch our head in even more disgust.
Today is another day that I can’t explain. When we were kids today was Saint Valentine’s Day. The first card I received was from a nun.
“All right children, it is time for us to exchange our Saint Valentine’s Day cards.”
Five minutes later we are reading about Zacchaeus the tax collector in Jericho.
That was my first experience with love. A card from Sister Mary Joseph with the Holy Spirit over a heart. A “Josie and the Pussicats” card from Ruthie and a Ferguson Jenkins baseball card from Kevin. Let’s not forget the stale cookies from last weekend’s parish bingo and then suddenly….. “get back to your desks.”
I didn’t get a chance to express my love for Karen with the ponytail before we were back reading The Gospel according to Luke.
The last Valentine I received was handed to me by someone heading out the door. A box of peppermint patties from Walgreens and a card with a guy in a sombrero shooting Cupid’s bow and arrow.
If someone wishes me a Happy Valentine’s Day I always reply with a Happy “Saint” Valentine’s Day and hope I don’t get a stale cookie from bingo.
I was so distraught at the Eighth grade/Freshman dance when I heard that she alright likes someone. All the girls at the dance already liked someone else. I walked home from the gymnasium broken hearted. Give me that Hottub Time Machine to go back and tell thirteen year old John Shepley that J Geils wrote that song for a reason.
At my age I’ll be lucky if I have 27 or 28 February fourteenth’s remaining. All of them worrying that I don’t get a stale cookie from last weekend’s parish bingo.
The mystery of Love has disappeared through the years. Loving someone and being in love with someone are two different things.
I learned about love from three different periods in my life. The chore of exchanging cards at a parochial grade school. Standing under a basketball hoop while everyone else danced to “Babe” by Styx and the final kicker…..
Getting a Walgreens box of candy from your wife before she heads up to Lake Geneva with her girlfriends. The girlfriend was a dude.
Happy Saint Valentine’s Day….
Hallmark and the florist say thank you.
Pitchers and Catchers report this week.
