Dorothy Wilhelm’s Valentine’s Day memories, including humorous breakups and gifts

For the shortest month, February has always had lots of drama packed into it.

You have to pay close attention. We’ve already missed National Dark Chocolate Day on the first, and of course Ground Hog Day on the second.

In these perilous days, it might be comforting to look over the years to see how we got to where we are.

The way I look at it, Dick Stacy was entirely to blame for ruining Valentine’s Day for me. Entirely.

The week had started the way any 5th grade Valentine’s week would do - with the red and white Valentine’s Day box on a table next to the teacher’s desk. There was lots of shoving as the boys fought to ignore the box.

They got as close as possible in order to ignore it thoroughly, but they certainly would not be seen inserting a valentine. The girls managed to pass the box every 3.5 seconds, hoping to see someone put in an envelope with their name.

Now this was 5th grade, so the idea was that the girls would put in lots of valentines, and the boys would put in no valentines, and everything would work smoothly as nature intended. But this year, Dick Stacy ruined it all by giving me, in a fit of 10-year-old passion, a ceramic toothbrush holder, symbolizing either that he loved my smile, or that he thought my teeth could be cleaner.

I never knew which because when I got home, my father took one horrified look and promptly shattered the little creature on the floor. “Boys are only after one thing,” he growled. He said that to me often over the years, but he never said what the one thing was. Valentine’s Day remained a mystery, though I was always leery of toothbrush holders.

Of course, over the years, the observance of Valentine’s Day changed. There were flowers, preferably roses or a heart shaped box with cheap chocolates. There are certain things you can count on. Love is where you find it.

There’s a comfort to following tradition.

My husband added a new level to romantic occasions by carefully signing his name on cards with his formal signature and rank, but no tender word or personal message. After all, he reasoned, we buy the cards for their picture so we should not distract with mushy phrases and then, at a practical level, you can always use them again.

Most important were the very special holiday recipes. My mother started life as a terrible, terrible, not quite good cook. Her first effort at baking a cake was so calamitous that she snatched it up and ran down the path, past the chicken coop and outhouse and threw it into the great Kootenai River. It did not float.

Sometimes Valentine’s Day is about love gone wrong of course. Our whole family observed with fascination as the youngest daughter developed a romantic interest in a young man named Josh. Josh became so interested in her that he actually gave her his letter jacket to wear. You will know what a momentous occasion that was. Love was in the air.

“Josh had acted all romantic and had actually come over to the house, and he gave me his jacket to wear, and I’m pretty sure we’d kissed,” she recalls. “Anyway, one day in school he gives me a note saying that we were not going out anymore. I specifically remember it said: ‘Other people think I’m leading you on, but I don’t think I’m leading you on.’ He was totally leading me on. Anyway, genius said I could give him back his jacket the next day. Which on the one hand, at least I didn’t have to go home with no jacket, but on the other hand, maybe letting the girl you just dumped hold onto your property isn’t a great idea. So, I took the jacket home, laid it carefully on the floor, and stomped it vigorously and musically every chance I got for the next 15 hours or so. Then it was all right.”

Love is where you find it. It’s better if you don’t look too hard.

Where to find Dorothy

Find Dorothy’s virtual events and podcasts at www.itsnevertoolate.com. You can also find her on YouTube, Spotify, Apple or wherever you get podcasts.

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This story was originally published February 8, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Dorothy Wilhelm’s Valentine’s Day memories, including humorous breakups and gifts."