The other day I read a friend’s post that got me thinking. Do you remember elementary school? Think about it for a moment. Life was so much simpler then. For the most part there were very few differences between most boys and girls. The biggest thing I noticed back then was that girls wore dresses and guys wore patched up jeans. We were gender neutral before anyone ever thought about that term.

We played together most of the time, except for the days some guy brought a football to school. We played Red Rover, jacks, and dodgeball. For the most part the girls were just a tough as some of us guys. There was one girl in particular that I thought was so cool. She was missing part of a finger. If my memory serves me correctly it was one of her pointer fingers.

One day I asked her how she lost it and she told me that she was outside at her house walking by an outbuilding when she noticed something odd wiggling on its wall. She inspected it for a couple of seconds before she reached up to touch it. Just at the moment her finger made contact with the peculiar wiggling thing it grabbed her finger and pulled the end of it off.

As luck would have it her brother was on the other side of the wall with one of those old brace-n-bit drills installing a hole in the wall. Just as her finger touched the unknown wiggling object, which was the drill-bit, the bit broke through the wall and grabbed the end of her finger and pulled that rascal off.

She said it hurt. I believed her. But with a story like that she moved up the buddy list as far as I was concerned. She had to be tough.

Now that you’ve thought back to the good old days when boys were boys and girls nearly were, I want you to remember Valentine’s Day. Back then, those of us that could, would buy a large pack of Valentine’s cards to pass out to our classmates. We would sign our little names on them and go around the room handing them out to everyone. Boys, girls, teachers, the ladies in the cafeteria, whoever. Everybody received a Valentine’s card.

I’ll have to admit the year I met Miss Missing-a-digit I went through all the cards in my package and picked out a special one just for her. I may have even scrawled “Love” before I signed my name on it. I can’t remember if she noticed or not. It’s been a few years ago. These days she one of my Facebook friends.

Those were good times back then and life was so much simpler.

Life has evolved and I give out fewer cards now that I am older. My wife and grandchildren seem to enjoy them. But lately I’ve been thinking, what if we all went to the store like we did when we were kids and bought a package of those old generic Valentine’s Day cards to hand out to folks we encounter on the 14th? What if everyone just signed their names and handed them out at random? I’ll bet it would bring a smile to someone’s face. For me it would be like the late 50s and 60s all over again. Just old kids handing out cards like we did back then to say, “I want you to know that you matter. You deserve a card! Happy Valentine’s Day.”

Corny? Probably. But weren’t we instructed to love our neighbors? Perhaps for just that one day we could put aside our age, politics, religion, and gender differences to let someone know they matter. At least for a day.

Here’s my Valentine’s Day card to you. You matter.

Love, Rick

P.S. Miss Missing-a-digit, if you happen to read this I hope your finger has quit hurting and you have a wonderful day.

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Rick Algood
February 11, 2019