Happy Valentine’s Day

By Bud Focht

Hi, my name is Bud and I am taking my wife Terry to Niagara Falls for Valentine’s Day.

Some men buy their women flowers for Valentine’s Day, some buy candy. Some buy lingerie. Buying lingerie always puzzled me. Wouldn’t that be more of a gift for the guy? It usually doesn’t seem very comfortable and seems to be more for him to look at than for her to wear.

Others buy jewelry, some buy perfume. 

Terry doesn’t wear perfume and earrings are about all the jewelry she wears, unless engagement and wedding rings count.

Terry doesn’t eat much candy, and buying flowers can be a mistake.  Did you know certain flowers have a negative connotation to them?

If you buy someone daffodils it means you think they are vane.  Lavender is said to symbolize distrust.  Hydrangeas stand for heartlessness and cypress mean death. How romantic!

The custom of giving your lady a gift on Valentine’s Day is strange, since the date, February 14, commemorates Saint Valentine being martyred.

Apparently Saint Valentine wrote the first Valentine card from prison. The night before he was to be put to death he sent a letter to the daughter of his jailer forgiving them and he signed it “Your Valentine.”

The reason Valentine is associated with lovers is that he performed weddings for soldiers who were forbidden to marry. He would cut heart-shaped parchment and give them to the soldiers before they went off to battle to remind them of their vows and of God’s love. Hence the modern use of hearts and Valentine Cards on Valentine’s Day.

I don’t plan on giving Terry any parchment this year, or jewelry or candy or flowers. Definitely not any lingerie. 

The National Retail Federation estimates Americans will spend over $2 billion on flowers and close to $5 billion on jewelry this Valentine’s.  Not me.

I will take Terry on a weekend getaway to Niagara Falls.

Honeymooning couples have made their way to Niagara Falls for nearly 200 years. Although the Falls has not made it into the top ten list of lovers’ destinations for quite some time, Niagara Falls continues to offer some unique charms.

Of course, most people who visit the Falls go during the summer months.

Terry and I have been going there for the past few winters.  There are still plenty of tourists there, from all over the world, but it is a bit chilly.

The reason we go during the winter is because I have to work in Buffalo on Friday night and in Niagara, about 20 minutes from Buffalo, on Sunday afternoon.  So Terry goes with me and we have all day Saturday to take in the sights.

And this year I am determined to talk Terry into letting me rent that barrel.

Last year the week before we went the Falls made national news because it froze solid. By the time we got there the weather had warmed up a bit so it thawed, but that made it terrible for us.  Because of the pounding of the water, hitting the rocks and the Niagara River below, there is always a mist in the air. The combination of the mist, along with the thawing of the ice, made it so foggy you could barely see the falls.

But you certainly could still hear it.  That was the first impression I got when I first visited the Falls, how loud it is.

The first few times we went we only saw it from the New York side. The last few times we’ve brought our passports and went into Niagara Falls, Ontario. The difference is like night and day.

The Canadian side is so much better. The view is 100 percent better, looking straight at the American Falls and the Bridal Veil Falls next to it. And from the Canadian side you can get within a few feet of the Horseshoe Falls. You can actually feel the power.

The Canadian side is also more designed for the tourists. Many more shops and restaurants and bars. A lot more things to do. There is also a history of the Falls to look at.  All of the people who tried to go over the Falls in a barrel, how much it erodes every year, the time the Army Corps of Engineers actually shut the flow off while working on it.

Also in Canada, it is legal to buy Cuban cigars. Every year when we go up we buy a few for my cigar-smoking friends back home. Last year, however, it didn’t work out too well.

I was always under the impression that you could bring back two or three cigars with you, just not a case.  So every time when we came across the border, when asked if we had anything to declare, I would always say “I bought two cigars.” And the guard always said nothing. Last year, however, was different.

Did you know the crime from bringing Cuban cigars into the United States is treason?  Treason!  These weren’t government secrets I was bringing across the border, just a couple of cigars.

When I told the guard I had a couple of cigars last winter he began to yell at me and would not give us our passports back. He made us pull over and go inside. After waiting for a while the guard inside asked us why we were there and when I told him he seemed perplexed. He went into the back and spoke to a supervisor, and the supervisor came out and told us he could put us in jail for treason, that we were contributing to a communist country by buying these cigars.

So I asked him, “Are you going to throw us in jail?”  He didn’t.

I guess it was just a slow day at the border and they wanted to ruffle some feathers.

When we left Terry said to me “I guess we won’t be buying any Cuban cigars anymore when we come up here.” And I said, “No, I’m still going to buy them but from now on we won’t be declaring to them that we bought them.”

The good news is that the Cuban embargo that JFK started over 50 years ago is just about over and I should not have any problems bringing the best cigars in the world back home with me.

So that is what I am giving my friends for Valentine’s Day.

I will be giving Terry a get-a-way weekend.

Since Terry was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer’s Disease we have learned to make the most of every minute we have together.   This weekend we will have many of those minutes, in the eight hour drive to Western New York and the time spent at the Falls.

Time together is the best present we can give to ourselves. Sweeter than candy and much more comfortable than lingerie.

Until next time, hope you get to spend precious time with your Valentine.

Bud