By: Telly Gonzaga-Ocampo
Poems, Songs, Scents and Roses on Valentine’s Day
I’m just wondering how the millennials of today spend their Valentine’s day. Everything is already there: places and venues, food, scents, flowers – for or as long as you have the money.
I belong to that generation of the transistor radio. During our Valentine’s Day celebration, we felt we were in high heavens when we got dedications of love songs thru the air waves. At this time the airwaves were already filled with words of dedication and with the appropriate love songs. My editor and my bff started young in broadcasting. She owns that beautiful voice on radio.
So for this Sunday please walk with us down memory lane and savor once again the romance of the day. We did not have dates then. Most of my friends did not have boyfriends. We had a pact saying that we will have our boyfriends when we graduate in college.
I think it was the same for the boys. They just had their monthly allowance. So how can they luxuriously afford to have a girlfriend?
One was fortunate if his home had a transistor radio. We had our own transistor radio at home. Just imagine once again my bff Ardy reciting on the airwaves Rolando Carbonell’s poem: “Beyond forgetting”!
My highschool classmate who is in the U.S.A. forwarded to us the old love songs of Johnny Mathis, the man with the most soothing voice with words of love leaving beautiful imprints in our hearts.
I feel grateful today that my husband left me music soothing to the soul.
Most of us still remember these songs from the days of our youth: “Till” and “The Twelveth of Never”
Till the moon deserts the sky.
Till all the seas run dry.
Till then I worship you.
Till the tropic sun grows cold.
Till this young world grows old.
My darling I adore you!
You are my reason to live.
All I own I would give.
Just to have you adore me.
Till the rivers flow upstream.
Till lovers cease to dream.
Till then I’m yours be mine.
This song brings me back in time when my waistline was at 24 and where you would find me dancing in my flowing balloon skirt in pink yellow or blue. And I was in the arms of the man who became my husband.
The fashion icon then was Audrey Hepburn. The Twelveth of Never is not to be danced but a song to be savored the Johny Mathis way.
You ask me how much I need you, must I explain. I need you oh my darling as roses need the rain. Until the twelveth of never and that’s a long long time.
I love you till the blue bells forget to bloom. I love you till the clover has lost its perfume. Until the 12th of never and that’s a long long time.
Hold me close. Never let me go. Hold me close until the April shower.
I love you till the poets have lost their words. I love you till the clover has lost its perfume. Until the end of never and that’s a long long time.
Department stores in the 60’s were slowly evolving. Small gift items and imported at that time were already available. Perfumes like avon in beautiful containers in pastel were the vogue in those days. They became popular gift items like Yardley in English lavender soap in small boxes ready for wrapping depending on the occasion – all tied with satin ribbons. Fans, embroidered handkerchiefs, and old spice – the favored gift for men. These were the few of my favorite things to give on Valentine’s Day.
And don’t ever forget the red roses.
Happy Valentines Day to the young, the not so young, and the old. After all, Valentine’s Day is for everyone!
