Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and while some will celebrate this weekend, others will indulge in a fancy dinner Monday, the official day. But take heart, the young and the old say the holiday is about family and friends, not gifts and grandiose displays of affection.
The Renton Reporter visited Nancy Lotto’s first-grade class at Renton Park Elementary School and seniors at Evergreen Place retirement center in the Highlands to see what Valentine’s Day means to them.
Wise beyond their years, the students in Lotto’s class echoed the same sentiments: Valentine’s Day is about sharing, caring and loving.
“It’s about love,” said Jocelyn Perez, 6. “We like to give candy. It’s like we share and care and we give hearts, like the ones that are on my mail truck.”
The first graders made paper mail trucks to hold their valentines they will exchange Monday, along with some candy and treats.
“Everybody, I wish you could see it,” said Lotto. “They go on the floor and they’re just hugging each other, ‘Thank you for the valentine.’”
Six-year-old Cole Boyle just wants a card for Valentine’s Day and said the holiday “means giving and making stuff for your Mom and Dad.”
Mae Woo, 6, doesn’t want anything. Reading from her card she made in class, she said, “Valentine’s Day is about love and you can give cards to your friend and your family.”
She’s right about that. Hallmark estimates that 141 million Valentine’s Day cards are exchanged industry-wide, not including packaged kids’ cards for classroom exchange.
What does 6-year-old Treavor Atkins do to mark the occasion?
“We have a big feast and we just have fun with our grandma and grandpa,” he said. “I like it when we are all nice and relaxing.”
Kicking back and relaxing is just what some seniors will do at Evergreen Place to celebrate the special day.
For Francis Ogden, Feb. 14 is her birthday.
The 83-year-old was born on a farm in Manitoba, Canada, and remembers making homemade valentines with her family.
“It was a fun day to have a birthday,” she said. “It’s always been a fun day, as it will be in another few [days].”
Bonny and Tony Hanson have been married for more than 60 years and say that loving someone is eternal. The couple now in their 80s once drank a cocktail or two to celebrate Valentine’s Day, but now they drink coffee.
“We’ve been very very happy together,” said Bonny Hanson. “We’ve had wonderful children and now we’re still having a wonderful time.”
Elsie Hill, 87, remembers fondly the Valentine’s Day drama of her school-age years. She recalled the last time students exchanged cards in her eighth-grade class.
“And so they had a great big box and everybody was entering in,” she said. “And I saw this fellow stick the valentine in for me and I thought, ‘Oh that was so neat.’ But he wasn’t the one I liked. It was his brother.”
Today, Hill said, Valentine’s Day means family and lots of children.
Carl and Josephine Caruli are rarely seen apart from one another at Evergreen Place. The couple has been married for 73 years. He was born in Renton and she in Bellevue, but their parents knew each other in Italy.
So what’s the secret to lasting love?
“Well, I think both people have to love each other enough to stay married,” said Josephine Caruli, 94. “And keep loving each other and have a lot of friends come and visit and have things to do together and make a happy bunch, a happy family.”
She considers Valentine’s Day just another day, “but you plan to have company with whom you are interested in and love.”
“But that’s the holiday of love,” her husband Carl Caruli interjects.
“Teach yourself to learn cara mia,” he said.
The Italian phrase means my dear one or cherished one.
“Ti amo, ti amo means I love you,” Carl Caruli said. “Con means with, tutto means all, entirely. Mio cuore, my heart.”
“Cara mia, ti amo con tutto mio cuore,” he said passionately, as Josephine laughs.
