To my Valentine

Romance aside, Valentine’s Day can be a frantic event, but lucrative for greeting card makers, florists, and restaurateurs. In 1997 your chances of being taken out to dinner are better than last year’s because February 14th falls on Friday.

How long has all of this been going on? Historians trace the roots of Valentine’s Day back to the fertility festival of Lupercalia in Roman times. With spring in the offing, both birds and humans were beginning to be more affectionate, and celebrating Lupercalia was encouraged to make all unions fruitful.

The love notes started a few hundred years later, prompted by the good St. Valentine, and in centuries to follow, the custom spread throughout Europe and was carried to North America. Greeting card makers couldn’t be happier. After Christmas, people buy more Valentines than any other type of greeting card. Some 7.4 billion affectionate and funny cards are expected to be sold for Valentine’s Day 1997.

Flowers have long been a symbol of love and caring. They were especially handy a century ago when many lovers were illiterate and could not write a love note or read one.
For most florists, Valentine’s Day is the busiest and most hectic day of the year. Many sell thousands of roses, the most preferred Valentine flower. And air freight companies go into high gear as well. Many flowers are grown in South America. Federal Express last year commissioned two extra DC-10s to make its trips for Valentine flowers, and Tampa Air doubles its flights for the time preceding the holiday. (One 747 can carry 3.6 million roses.)
Candy stores also have a brisk business around February 14, doing about 9 percent of their annual business around the big day, says the National Confectioners Assn.

Happy Valentine’s Day. But remember as you open the card or smell the roses, the process has not been as simple as it would appear.