Thoughts on love, just in time for Valentine's Day
- Mike Dewey: Life Lines
- February 15, 2025
- 538
Here’s a factoid that Hallmark probably doesn’t want you to know:
St. Valentine, a Roman priest, was condemned to death, beaten savagely with clubs before being beheaded in the year 270.
Nothin’ says lovin’ like a little bit of pagan torture … am I right?
Yeah, old Father Valentine had no idea, when that sharp blade was obeying gravity, that in years to come, his name would become synonymous with flowers, boxes of chocolates and lacy lingerie.
Or that on Thursday, Feb. 14, 1929, seven men in Chicago’s North Side Gang would be lined up against a garage wall and shot to death, courtesy of Al Capone, who was sunning in Florida that day.
Nothin’ says lovin’ like a Thompson submachine gun … am I right?
On the plus side, a dog named Highball that belonged to Frank May, whose face was all but obliterated, survived the massacre.
This was when the phrase “lucky dog” came into common parlance.
Wait … stop. I just fabricated that last bit because I needed a segue.
That’s what happens sometimes when you sit down to write something and you type yourself into a corner, the victim of your own affection for tangents and backstreets, lacking a real compass.
Serious literature critics have suggested that James Joyce, in his landmark novel “Ulysses,” succumbed to that very thing, composing sentences that went on for hundreds and hundreds of words, covering many pages, with little punctuation, all because he didn’t have any concrete idea how Molly Bloom was really feeling.
Nothin’ says lovin’ like a faithless, cheating woman … am I right?
Speaking of old girlfriends, I got into a conversation the other day that involved love letters — specifically, when do you get rid of them?
Immediately upon a relationship’s implosion? After some time has passed and you’ve moved on? Or never, as in “I’m keeping ’em because I may need a reminder of how bad it hurts to be betrayed?”
Bad memories are like bad restaurant meals — you get over the immediate sensation of sickness, but you never forget the cause.
Valentine’s Day is a come-hither holiday, one that perpetuates the addictive, dopamine-fueled rush of love’s immense and infinite rewards, a time to count your blessings, a moment to savor, like a song that will always remind you of the one true thing in your life.
I was having another conversation with another group the other day and I asked, “What was the first song you danced to after you were married?” Strangely, none of them could remember theirs.
Which means nothing, in and of itself. I certainly understand that, since, as I’ve gotten older, my memory is less reliable than it ought to be. It’s maddening, for example, not to remember the name of the bassist in Glass Harp, which is something I know that I know.
Hours will pass, and then suddenly, the sky opens up and it comes to you and you’re happy that Daniel Pecchio is back in your brain.
I was trying to explain this idea to my wife the other day, and the best I could do was equate it with a locked front door and how if your key didn’t fit right away, the best thing to do is walk away.
“You can’t come at a missing memory head-on,” I said. “You have to sneak around back and pretend you’re looking for nuts and berries, something unrelated to the real reason you’re out there.”
I took a deliberate, pregnant pause for effect before continuing.
“Then,” I said, with a Cheshire cat’s grin, “you feel for the knob and, without a sound, you twist it and walk right in the back door.”
Nothin’ says lovin’ like a wife making you feel smart … am I right?
Our first dance as a legally wedded couple was “Here, There and Everywhere” by the Beatles, from their 1966 “Revolver” album.
Faithful readers may recall that we were married on the beach near the Kitty Hawk Pier, the Outer Banks of North Carolina having become our go-to vacation destination every October since 1996.
The preacher wore sandals with straps, which I took as a nod to the New Testament, and our guests stood in the sand, the Atlantic crashing, the ocean a sun-dappled wonder as the Blue Hour approached and we publicly pledged our love, which had been growing since we began seeing each other 20 autumns before.
It was a comfortable, relaxing ceremony, though I was nervous throughout, having left until that morning the task of memorizing my vows, which, though I’d had plenty of time, I never wrote down.
Nothin’ says lovin’ like winging promises on the fly … am I right?
But Lennon and McCartney had my back: “To lead a better life, I need my love to be here.” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
The song only lasts 145 seconds, about my limit on a dance floor.
Valentine’s Day may be a hyped-up, overdone, cloying Hallmark card contrivance, but there’s nothing inherently wrong with a reminder of how strange and wonderful a love can be … am I right?
Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to find him on Facebook, where he sometimes still deejays wedding receptions.