Couple, married 83 years, share their secret

The year was 1925. Calvin Coolidge was president, Adolf Hitler released the first part of his book, “Mein Kampf,” Charlie Chaplin’s big movie was “The Gold Rush,” flappers were singing and dancing to “Sweet Georgia Brown” and “I’m Sitting on Top of the World,” the Scopes Trial played out in Tennessee, the first television images were broadcast, Al Capone ruled the streets of Chicago, flagpole sitters were all the rage, Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were the newest recording artists, the price of a first-class stamp hit 2 cents.

And in Hugo, Minn., an 18-year-old man named Clarence Vail married his 16-year-old sweetheart, Mayme. They had met in the eighth grade, and marriages at such young ages were more the norm than the exception back then. Unremarkable at the time, that union, now 83 years old and still as strong as ever, has finally claimed a place among the historic events of the year. …

They don’t have a magic formula to explain the success of their marriage. They just took seriously what they said to each other when they stood at the altar.

“You take your vows, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer,” Mayme said. “I guess you just stick to it, come what may.”

They say they haven’t had an argument since 1946, something that Mayme attributes to the fact that her husband, who is 101, is the strong, silent type who isn’t given to argument. “That’s why we got along so well,” joked the 99-year-old Mayme. “He never spoke out of turn. I didn’t give him a chance.” - msnbc

 

ONCE: Falling Slowly.

This song reminds me that in a parallel Universe, years ago, I took a bus ride for fun. I met and asked a girl out on a date. We went rowing on a lake that weekend. We were in our 20’s. She was a talented musician. We have been together ever since, in college, in love, building our careers, writing songs, making music, having kids, buying a home, saving the world.

Back in this Universe I’ve been fairly happy … but something is missing … because I missed that bus. I think she looks like Gillian Anderson, but that’s just a guess. She is living her life vaguely annoyed with a man she never met, a man who never took her rowing. Now she rows alone, mumbling to herself, “I should be on a bus, not in a boat.”

Valentine’s Day History: February fertility festivals

Though popular modern sources link unspecified Graeco-Roman February holidays alleged to be devoted to fertility and love to St Valentine’s Day, Professor Jack Oruch of the University of Kansas argued^[2] that prior to Chaucer, no links between the Saints named Valentinus and romantic love existed. …In Ancient Rome, February 15 was Lupercalia, an archaic rite connected to fertility, without overtones of romance. Plutarch wrote:

Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.^[3]

Lupercalia was a festival local to the city of Rome. The more general Festival of Juno Februa, meaning “Juno the purifier “or “the chaste Juno,” was celebrated on February 13-14. Pope Gelasius I (492-496) abolished Lupercalia.

A festival said to be of Juno Februata or Juno Februa, though it does not appear in Ovid’s Fasti was described by Alban Butler, famous as the author of Butler’s Lives of Saints, who presented an aspect of the Roman Lupercalia as a festival of a “Juno Februata”, under the heading of February 14:

“To abolish the heathens lewd superstitious custom of boys drawing the names of girls, in honour of their goddess Februata Juno, on the fifteenth of this month, several zealous pastors substituted the names of saints in billets, given on this day.”^[1]

Jack Oruch, who noted Butler’s inventive confusion,^[2] noted that it was embellished by Francis Douce, in Illustrations of Shakespeare, and of Ancient Manners, new ed. London, 1839, p 470, who took such a festival for the Lupercalia, which was celebrated, he asserted,

“during a great art of the month of February…. in honour of Pan and Juno… On this occasion, amidst a variety of ceremonies, the names of young women were put into a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.” Douce repeated Butler’s description of the attempt to substitute saint’s names, and concluded that “as the festival of the Lupercalia had commenced about the middle of February, [the Christians] appear to have chosen Saint Valentine’s day for celebrating the new feast; because it occurred nearly at the same time”^[3]

The connection thus begun has been uncritically repeated to the modern day: but see Valentine’s Day and Saint Valentine.

Source: Wiki

Fertility festivals? Who has time for that? See: Surprising reasons you’re not having sex

World’s Most Romantic Restaurants

February 13th, 2008

Our 12 restaurant picks from around the world have all the right elements—a seductive view, an unhurried atmosphere, terrific food…

Source: Concierge

See’s Candies Recalls Chocolate Day Before Valentine’s Day

Just before Valentine’s Day, See’s Candies has announced it is recalling 16-ounce bags of its Semi Sweet Chocolate Chips.The company said the candies may contain undeclared traces of milk. People with severe milk allergies are warned that eating the candies can result in serious or life-threatening allergic reactions.Concerned consumers who bought the product should return them to the shops where they were purchased for a full refund.

Source: KNBC

I’m writing this three minutes into Valentine’s Day (aka Singles Awareness Day). No one has called me yet to admit that they are madly in love with me so I’m just going to sleep.