Normally, my seventh period class furnished a quiet end to the school day, but not today. From my desk on right hand side, waiting for the final bell, I was more or less listening when a major interruption breezed in. It was several of my classmates, laughing and giggling. 

“Mr. C., we’ve got singing valentines to deliver!” Caught in mid-sentence, Mr. G. grinned and accommodatingly stood back a bit, giving them room. 

“O.K., go ahead!”   

Oh, that, I thought. Well, let’s see who gets a Valentine! . . . Oh, of course we all know Tom would send one to Shirl! ‘All My Lovin.’” She looks so pleased!

But then the group moved on and sang to someone else. This time I noticed the music itself. Oh, yeah. Those Beatles songs really fit in for this. ‘I Wanna Be Your Valentine’? Yup. We just changed a few words here and there or made ‘she’ into ‘he.’ 

“And now we’ve got one more!” And to my horror, the singers (Judy, Bonnie, Rick, and Mac) moved over to my aisle. Oh, NO. They’re coming to me. 

“Sally, you have a singing Valentine from Bruce Campbell!” 

A big buzz of whispering and giggling, and the little group surrounded me and launched into ‘All My Lovin.’ 

This can’t be happening! Nobody sends ME Valentines! Oh, this is awful. . . . I peeked around and everybody was smirking, including Mr. G. “All my lovin’. . .I will send you. . . darlin, I’ll be true. . .” With every word, I felt worse. I’m getting warm all over, down to my toes, it seems like. And they just kept singing. The chorus repeated. And repeated.

Finally it was over. Everybody clapped, guys whistled. But wait, there was one more detail: a plastic bag of fudge landed on my desk.  At least I can take that home and enjoy it by myself.

Then the singing quartet bustled out, whispering among themselves, and Mr. G. tried to pick up where he’d left off. Of course I couldn’t take in anything. A few minutes later, the bell rang. Oh, thank goodness . . . And I fled to home room, then the waiting bus.   

I was seventeen then, near the end of my senior year at Nauset Regional High School, and I’d dated Bruce on and off every year since eighth grade. We’d met when I came to Eastham in sixth grade, swam and skated together, and horsed around and pushed each other off the float. We’d played in school band and orchestra, marched in Memorial Day parades, and played in the town band; my father worked with Bruce’s Mom Peg, and last summer, I had, too. Bruce had taken me to prom in eighth grade, and in our junior and senior years. 

Recently, though, things had sort of settled into a “Well, I can always ask her/him” mode.  I was looking ahead to college, to dating in The Big World of Boston, and ready to put the Cape Cod social scene behind me.  

As for that so-called Big World, barely a week before that Valentine’s Day, the Beatles had come to the U.S. for the first time. Along with seventy million other Americans, my mother and father and I had watched them on The Ed Sullivan Show. It’s hard to comprehend now, but to us that night, they appeared downright radical; we were appalled. Musically nurtured by my father, I was a complete classical music snob and about to attend the New England Conservatory of Music next September.

 Yet I’d danced at Youth Group dances to Love Me Tender, slowly shuffling around the church social hall in the arms of Jery Jones (his spelling). That kind of slow, semi-reverent pop song was OK, I guessed—and I’d have hated to admit it, but I think deep down inside, I sort of liked Hound Dog, too. Elvis had sure caught my ear, anyway.

What I hated most about the Beatles was the fans. The hysteria! The screaming girls on the news, jumping and up and down, the crowd control necessary. They act so stupid! I wouldn’t do something like that! The sensational side of it all, that just wasn’t me. Yet there I was, having that darn Beatles song sung to me, in front of everybody in class, in public.

Even so, was I secretly pleased? Probably yes. 

And all this time later — sixty years now!—I realize that that singing Valentine was a highlight of my senior year.  

There was an aspect of it I didn’t realize then; let’s call it, in another little piece of parody: All My Writin.’ It was probably the first time in my life when words I’d (sort of) written came back at me; creating those serenades, my friends and were just playing around with words. All I did was help to re-write songs like I Want to Hold Your Hand and put them out there as I Want to Be Your Valentine. I never gave a thought to how it would feel to be on the receiving end. It’s a stretch to say I’d taken on responsibility, but I sure suffered through that serenade. 

I have to note, though, that this insight, if that’s what it is, has taken me decades to realize. But perhaps that’s one reason the incident has stuck in memory when a lot of other things have vanished. 

But sometimes trivia is what sticks in memory. Why else do I remember the shoe and handbag fads I subscribed to in high school? Why do I remember several outfits I can still describe in detail, and not just because I had to iron those damn full-skirted shirtwaist dresses that wrinkled with five minutes’ wear?  Why remember shopping among picked-over prom dresses when Bruce invited me to the event three days beforehand? A measly selection indeed—and I remember hardly anything about the dance itself.

Still, I can easily remember where I was sitting that Valentines’ Day. And like everyone else, I will also never forget where I was sitting that horrible day President Kennedy was shot. only three months before. I can see the French words on the blackboard, Mrs. Murphy’s shocked face, and how we all froze as the announcement came over the PA. Serious and trivial, memories all jumble together willy-nilly. 

I also remember, to the point of photographic image, the page of the piano part for the Andante from the Haydn Trumpet Concerto, in which I accompanied Bruce. That same day, I ended up also accompanying our band director, Frank James, as he demonstrated the piece for us. Oh, his beautiful pearly tone! The way he painted and draped the melody over my A flat major piano chords. I have never forgotten how thrilled and moved Bruce and I were. 

Consciously now, I repeat my own words. “I have never forgotten.” For I want to end this piece as a surprise Valentine of sorts to Bruce himself; sadly, he can’t know of it as he died very recently. I last saw him at our fortieth class reunion, also had coffee with him the day before. 

Bruce, thank you for that singing Valentine! Guiltily now, I actually wonder if I ever did thank you, so stuck in my own embarrassment as I was. I’m thankful for all the times we shared, so many of them including music. Those records of Roger Voisin’s trumpet playing, and how we listened to him play Purcell over and over. In band, we played Sousa marches and oldies like Under the Double Eagle and Entry of the Gladiators, also arrangements of songs from Broadway shows. I remember one night when you unaccountably missed your entrance for the solo in Til There Was You at a beach band concert. I found out later it was because a bug flew into your mouth as you took a breath! Wondering what was happening, we all madly “vamped until ready” until you recovered. 

Thank you for being my first boyfriend, for noticing me, also for always choosing me as your partner in square dancing, and how much fun those square dances were, especially outdoors. And then there was that crazy drive-in date with your Dad at the wheel, seeing Ben-Hur, the top down on the car—and rain dropping out of the sky just as the chariot race started. 

Bruce, thank you again for the ego boost of that singing Valentine, though I can’t now remember if you were even in that class and saw my whole-body blush. 

So much I have not forgotten! And I love to remember. 

So this time I’ll sing to you, Bruce. “I wanna be your Valentine . . .” 

Will you be mine?