Secret Love
. These “Secret Valentines” are not only great fun, they’re the perfect images to exemplify Valentine’s Day. Why? Because St.Valentine represents forbidden love. Stories about St. Valentine abound, but the one I favor is the legend about a priest name Valentinus or Valentine who lived during the third century in Rome. The reigning emperor at that time, Claudius II, decided that single men would make better soldiers than those who had wives, thus soldiers were forbidden to marry. The soldiers sought aid from Valentine, who married couples in secret, in violation of the law. When his...
Read MoreWords of Love
Alex William’s New York Times article The End of Courtship could bring the most optimistic romantic to tears. The accompanying graphic depicts 16 millennials sitting at a bar, all sending and reading texts. Eye contact between patrons is Zero. Zip. Nada. Yet the messages they’re reading include “Join me for breakfast?” “Steamy spa night @ 11 p.m.” and “You in? 2am my place for some hot mac and cheese.” Courtship today consists of “Hey” or “Sup?” (Sounds the Fonz; yet even he knew courting required meeting the girl at her doorstep and escorting her home.) According to Williams, one woman who...
Read MoreBirthday Cards
“A good man measures his life not in the number of his years, but in the quality of his friends.” Todd Stocker As we learned in our first birthday blog, a popular custom in years past (and for some of us, still today 🙂 ) has been to tuck a hankie in a card to say Congratulations and Many Happy Returns. A handkerchief card from Millie to her sister Flo in 1935 Other fun gifts to receive were “secret message” handkerchiefs, much like we saw in our Secret Love Valentine handkies. The message is revealed when the handkerchief is folded. Many handkerchiefs were designed to unfold...
Read MoreValentine Oh Please
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” Dr. Seuss Since handkerchiefs have long been a vehicle for flirting, it’s no surprise to find dozens of hankies adorned with images of amour. From richly embroidered roses to images of turtledoves and throbbing hearts, a hankie is the quintessential fashion accessory when it comes to romance. The variety of images is as vast as the legion of lovers of Catherine the Great. Today our tuning forks are trained on a single note – the reluctant ingénue – as we follow...
Read MoreHandkerchief Heroes
Are people so consumed with collecting that they’ll drag blistered feet through antique stalls or hunker over a hot keyboard for hours to scroll through web auctions for watch fobs, pickle dishes, or campaign buttons to find the pièce de résistance to complete their collection? Indeed they will. You’ll know them by the pallor of their skin, and the tiny computer monitors reflected in their pupils. I used to scoff at those silly fools…until I became one. A zombie from The Walking Dead is tame compared to a gimlet-eyed ebay master trolling cyberspace 3:00 a.m. Like most collectors my...
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