Singles' Awareness Day

Back in the day, Rome was surrounded by wolves, so Romans needed a god to protect them from these lupine creatures. Each February 15 they celebrated Lupercalia, a rite associated with the god of wolves connected not to romantic love but to fertility. Here's what Plutarch says:

"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."

When an early Pope named February 14 St. Valentine's Day, he could have been referring to any of three St. Valentines. To understand how the day became associated with love, well, just blame it on Chaucer. In fact, as you go through life, blame anything you don't understand on Chaucer; it works for me.

The practice of sending cards originated, of course, in the United States, when in 1847 a woman whose father owned a stationery company began printing up embossed love cards. Heart-shaped boxes came about a century later, as did the practice of schoolchildren bringing in a card for every kid in the room.

I'm a traditionalist, which means I'll be spending my day with the magistrates, running around naked with a shaggy thong. Please join me in this anti-capitalistic celebration of the day.