Be my valentine

Terry Anderson has been my Valentine for over 35 years. He gave me these roses for Valentine's Day this past Sunday. [Gretchen Lord Anderson photo]

Terry Anderson has been my Valentine for over 35 years. He gave me these roses for Valentine’s Day this past Sunday. [Gretchen Lord Anderson photo]

When I was in my early years of high school, I was surprised when my folks called to me and told me there was a telegram for me. I had to go to the door to claim it from the Western Union carrier.

It made me a little nervous. Even at that young age, I associated telegrams with bad news. People generally picked up the telephone in those days to relay whatever messages they had, or they wrote letters. But telegrams were usually used for very serious business.

It seems the family was interested too. Mom and Dad didn’t stand right over me, but I do recall definite hovering as I opened the envelope.

I’m sure I have that telegram somewhere along with the two or three others that followed it. I’m not sure what all of the messages said, but I do recall one that had the lyrics to “This Guy’s In Love With You,” a song that was popular at the time and recorded by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass:

You see this guy, this guy’s in love with you
Yes, I’m in love
Who looks at you the way I do?
When you smile I can tell
We know each other very well
How can I show you
I’m glad I got to know you
‘Cause

I’ve heard some talk
They say you think I’m fine
Yes, I’m in love
And what I’d do to make you mine
Tell me now, is it so
Don’t let me be the last to know
My hands are shaking
Don’t let my heart be breaking
‘Cause

I need your love
I want your love
Say you’re in love, in love
With this guy
If not I’ll just die STOP

Telegrams didn’t use periods at the end of sentences. You knew when you were at the end of the sentence when you saw STOP in all capital letters.

Now, I don’t recall if all of the lyrics were included but there were certainly enough for me to get the gist. It would have been very expensive to send a telegram with that many words in it. Or two or three more telegrams for that matter. They arrived in intervals so that I was always surprised.

There were a couple of problems with this. I was a little embarrassed in front of my family. What’s more, there was no signature attached to any of the telegrams I received. It was left to me to decide who my secret admirer might be.

For I’ll bet 30 years or more I always placed the blame on a boy I had known since grade school and had on again, off again asked me to go on dates with him. I was always nice to him, but I always told him no. I just wasn’t interested.

Then, well into adulthood, well into my married life and his own, my one-time secret admirer revealed himself to me amid gales of laughter. He was and continues to be a true friend and one who I never dreamed would send me anonymous poetry via telegram. Still, regardless of the time of year those telegrams were delivered, when Valentine’s Day rolls around, I can’t help but remember with some fondness (and forgetting the embarrassment and disgust) those anonymous dispatches.

The fact is that while my one true Valentine for over 35 years now has been Terry Anderson, I have also learned that valentines are not reserved for husbands and lovers but are for friends regardless of gender, age, and location. There are years that I am moved in one way or another to send a valentine to someone who is special to me, and, yet, even as I do that, I think of all of the valentines I have not sent to friends around the globe and to friends who have passed on. There are years I send no valentines at all.

I got to thinking this year about the concentration of my Valentines. Most of them are living in Missouri and South Dakota because those are the two places I have spent most of my years (although Wisconsin is now gaining on both of them). My Valentines are not just friends. They are also colleagues or professionals like doctors and nurses or people who have just gone an extra step for me when I have not deserved it.

Proclaiming our love for Missouri and South Dakota people and places on our Wisconsin license plates. [Gretchen Lord Anderson photo]

Proclaiming our love for Missouri and South Dakota people and places on our Wisconsin license plates. [Gretchen Lord Anderson photo]

Back in late September, Terry and I took possession of a brand new car. It had been a lot of years and over 150,000 miles since we had purchased a new car and we have yet to really break it in on a long road trip. But almost immediately we began to think that this new vehicle needed special license plates. So what did we do? We came up with our own code for Missouri and South Dakota (Missouri for where I was born and raised and South Dakota for where Terry was born and we both met): MOSODAK. The plates will go on the car this weekend.

MOSODAK on Wisconsin plates. That’s where the greatest concentration of my Valentines have lived and worked and some have died.

Our license plates are not just a tribute to locations from which we hail and where our professional lives have taken us. They are also a tribute to our many Valentines, living and dead, who have had a profound impact on our lives.

If you see a car with Wisconsin plates proclaiming MOSODAK on it, will you be my Valentine?

 

 

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. – John 13:34

Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. – Romans 11:9-10

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. – 1 John 4:7-8

 

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