Just an Old Fashioned Love Song

I don't love Valentine's Day.  Have I mentioned that before?  Like proms, like waiting to be picked for a baseball team, like watching the judge pass over your kid's 4H steer, Valentine's Day is more evidence of man's fall from grace, or the admonition that man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.  There is little upside and tons of room for disappointment from unrealized, unrealistic expectations. Once you get past the age of cartoon characters, candy hearts with slogans, and decorating your own Valentine mailbox, the whole darned thing epitomizes the term 'superficial'.  Let's face it, if Valentine's day had an Ebenezer Scrooge, I would be it.
So sue me...

All that aside, I assure you I am a true believer in true love,up to and including the music folks gild with hearts and flowers as 'our song'.  When I was 15, prime time for romantic nonsense, Three Dog Night had a hit with 'Old Fashioned Love Song'.

Just an old-fashioned love song playin' on the radio
And wrapped around the music is the sound
Of someone promising they'll never go
You swear you've heard it before
As it slowly rambles on and on
No need in bringin' `em back,
`Cause they're never really gone


Just an old-fashioned love song
One I'm sure they wrote for you and me
Just an old-fashioned love song
Comin' down in 3-part harmony

Not exactly Elizabeth Barrett Browning, huh.  Well , it was easy to memorize and had a good hook back in the day.

  I heard 'Young Love' by the Judds at least 150 times in 1989 as the young girls in the basement of our farm house played Naomi and Wynona

Young love, strong love, true love 
It's a new love
They're gonna make it through the hard times
Walk those lines
Yeah, these ties will bind
Young love.

Young love gets lots of attention.  How about some old fashioned love?

Happy Valentines Day to old lovers all.  One day, many years ago, we cleaned out boxes from the attic of our old farm house, boxes that had moved unopened and undisturbed from our house in Orland Park where they had undoubtedly lived unopened for a decade or more before that.  One of the boxes spilled open to reveal letters and some drawings in the tidy slanted script of my father.  There were lots of them, still folded in envelopes addressed to my mom.  We didn't read them; we didn't need to.  I am certain they are all long oxidized or discarded in the several moves my folks have made since then.  But they made me happy and still do.  I don't need to read my parent's letters to each other; I am happy merely knowing they exist.  These are folks who still perform daily kindnesses to each other after more than a half century of marriage.  Task becomes habit becomes ritual becomes gift when accepted with grace.

Another love song, at least in my interpretation, thanks to Lyle Lovett:

Old friend
All the stories to tell
Old friend
Could you bid me farewell
Old friend
It might be easy for another man to see
Old foe
All the pain and the scars
Old foe
Could you lay down your arms
Old foe
It might be easy for another man to see
Put your head down on my pillow
Put your hand on me and hold on
Hold on
Put your head down on my pillow
Put your hand on me and hold on
Hold on
Old friend


Old friends and old foes: do we not have our most heartfelt battles with the one we love most? Our loved ones are both our nearest friends and dearest foes. But laying down arms and holding on keeps us going, keeps us strong against the 'fightings and fears, within without' of this world.  Unspoken compromise is a rarer gift than a big box of chocolates .Better than a dozen red roses are the errors, omissions, and minor disasters permitted to fade and crumble into dust. My heroes are the old friends who are the last ones standing at the wedding as they count up anniversaries on the dance floor.  I want to dance at all the weddings even when I don't know the songs.  If living well is the best revenge, loving long is surely its corollary.

Happy Valentine's Day to old lovers and those who aspire to be...

I've got that old fashioned love in my heart

There it shall always remain

Like an ivy clinging vine, clinging closer all the time

Through the years, through these tears, just the same

I've got that old fashioned faith in my heart

And nothing can tear us apart

Dry land may change to sea

But there'll be no change in me

I've got that old fashioned love in my heart

(Suzy Bogguss and Asleep at the Wheel)