Sunny Side Up: Valentine's Day and long-ago crushes

When I was in grade school a million years ago — yes, I had a pet brontosaurus that was too big to fit into our garage — Valentine’s Day was a holiday youngsters eagerly anticipated.

Students often made their own valentine mailboxes, decorating old shoe boxes and other cardboard containers with white paper doilies and red construction paper hearts. We used our own small jars of white paste to attach the decorations. Some of my classmates also ate that paste, but I refrained since my culinary choices were much more sophisticated than theirs.