Notes - St. Valentine / close call /

         Make it a happy St. Valentine’s Day, orndorff. Be kind to your friends. – Amorella

         This is a surprise, Amorella. I wonder what Wikipedia has to say.

         I wonder what Wikipedia has to say.

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Saint Valentine (in Latin, Valentinus) is the name of several (14 in all martyred saints of ancient Rome. The name "Valentine", derived from valens (worthy, strong, powerful), was popular in Late Antiquity. Of the Saint Valentine whose feast is on February 14, nothing is known except his name and that he was buried on the Via Flaminia north of Rome on February 14, he was born on April 16. It is even uncertain whether the feast of that day celebrates only one saint or more saints of the same name. . . .

Historian Jack Oruch has made the case that the traditions associated with "Valentine's Day", documented in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Parliament of Foules and set in the fictional context of an old tradition, had no such tradition before Chaucer. He argues that the speculative explanation of sentimental customs, posing as historical fact, had their origins among 18th-century antiquaries, notably Alban Butler, the author of Butler's Lives of Saints, and have been perpetuated even by respectable modern scholars. In the French 14th-century manuscript illumination from a Vies des Saints (illustration above), Saint Valentine, bishop of Terni, oversees the construction of his basilica at Terni; there is no suggestion here yet that the bishop was a patron of lovers.

From Wikipedia

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         It is a surprise for me to find my literary hero Geoffrey Chaucer to have had a good part in modern Valentine’s Day festivities.

         A trip to Michael’s Tires for an alignment and I am ending up with four new tires for our 2003 Accord. Our old tires, which I also bought at Michael’s on Tylersville, are three years old and are 50,000 mile tires; they currently have 53,000 on them (they have 5,000 miles left on them). So, no complaints. This time we are going for 65,000 mile tires, one of Bridgestone’s best. When we trade in the 2003, if the tires are better than the one’s on the 2005, we will move them to the 2005. Seems like a win/win for us. We do so much driving. We enjoy the automobile, always have. Some have boats or planes, we have our wheels. To each their own.

         After the close call yesterday (someone ran a red light as you were turning left onto Mason-Montgomery from Tylersville; you put on the brakes and saved a collision by a second). Post, orndorff. – Amorella

         You’re right, Amorella. I forgot about that. I did think about it early in bed this morning though. The other car was going about forty miles an hour oblivious to the light. We were lucky. It would have been a bad accident and worse for Carol as the impact would have been on her side.