High school flashback: Valentine's Day

The person in the red jacket is a friend of mine, someone who's like a little brother to me. I ordered him a singing valentine for Valentine's day in my senior year of high school, and I've never enjoyed the "holiday" more than I did then. Ah, good times. (I didn't get anyone's permission to use this photo, hence the sinister black bar across the eyes.)

In my high school you could order a singing valentine for your fellow students for $3, and all the money earned went toward the ever-needy music department (music scores aren't cheap). In the beginning of January I'd see posters for auditions to be a singing valentine. The groups were all student-run, choral director-approved, and would rehearse 5 or 6 different songs to perform. In all there were eight quartets-- four all-female ones and four all-male-- and they all dressed up in different outfits-- nurses, firemen/women, dandies, doctors, etc. My freshman year the outfits were very risque and scandalous (one female quartet dressed as bad cops, with shiny tight shorts and handcuffs bouncing ever so suggestively on their waists); since then the outfits became less sexy and more dressy/black-tie. They always had a cutesy line with which they'd enter and interrupt a class, something related to what they were wearing, like, "We're burning with love for (recipient name)" and they'd set up a chair for the victim to sit in while they danced and sang around him/her. Nope, not blush-inducing at all.

The band always gets the most singing valentines sent. It's not as if we band members intentionally filibuster to get out of having to practice; most of the students involved in the music department are all friends and we enjoy getting to see every single quartet (read: all our friends) perform in that span of 50 or 55 minutes. Attempts had been made in the past to order a bunch of singing valentines to a class that potentially has a pop quiz, but teachers ultimately had the right to turn down the interruption to their regularly scheduled programming. In my junior year my chemistry teacher actually bought one for the class, but we ended up making her sit in the chair and watch her face go from pink to red to pinot noir.

I don't feel nostalgic about many experiences from high school, but I miss looking forward to what Valentine's day meant back then: taking pictures of my friends as four very handsome and talented singers serenaded them in front of the entire class. Ah, memories...