“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
Wm. Shakespeare

Valentine’s Day c’n be a hard day for kids....at least it was back in the days of my apple-faced youth...
(y’know...my ‘way back when time)
Valentine’s Day was a big deal in grade school....popular kids got lots of cards ‘n the less popular kids....well, they got fewer cards of course......but some kids....some kids didn’t get any cards at all...boys toughed it out or at least acted like it didn’t matter but some of the girls were just devastated....
I was never the most popular kid in the class, ever...no matter what class at what age but I was never shut out either....s’funny, I recall who the popular girls were but it’s the faces of the forgotten ones I c’n call to mind now...
When the schools began to institute a policy that made sure everyone got a card, I tho’t it was a good thing...
y’know, no child left behind kind’a thing...but by that time I was older ‘n knew so much more about everything.....
A lot of people think that age brings wisdom....t’ain’t so...age don’t make anyone smarter....sort’a like computers.....lots more knowledge but not enuff sense to know what to do with it.....
T’is true that the longer you wander around this old world, the more you know...it’d be impossible to live as long as Methuslah ‘n not have the slightest idea what to do with all the stuff you learn over the long years but by God, we all die trying.......
Anyways when the schools decided to make life for fair ‘n insure that ev’ryone in the class got the same amount of Valentine’s Day greetings, it somehow didn’t work out the way it was s’pozed to....social engineering never quite works out the way the do-gooders want it to....its a natural law y’see.....the law of unintended consequence...
that’s a big one t’day ‘n affects us in so many ways....like when the bottom fell out of the housing market becuz’ the social engineers put people into homes they couldn’t afford....well, enuff ranting...Valentine’s Day changed but the popular kids still got all the attention ‘n the unpopular kids still got to feel left out.....’n so it goes....
Life just ain’t fair sometimes ‘n there ain’t a durn thing that y’can do about it....at least, not on the grand scale....
On that proverbial other hand that I speak of so often, it’s another story entirely...y’know what I’m talking about....

“A rose must remain with the sun and the rain or its lovely promise won’t come true....” Ray Evans