Welcome to the Wakefield Doctrine (the theory of clarks, scotts and rogers)

Yes, I did buy a new keyboard. That means…. it’s ok to make mistakes because I have a delete key once again. lol  no, seriously …. I can!

Today is, of course, Valentines Day and being a High Faux Holiday in the Ecclesiastical Calendar of Hallmark, I naturally thought to write a post. Trouble is, I’ve been writing this blog since 2009. I may have written myself out. (The one saving grace: since I’ve been writing about the Doctrine since July 2009, I’ve been doing little else, (‘if it’s worth doing, it’s worth over-doing.’) Maybe something has happened in my life in the intervening 5 or 6 years that I haven’t discovered yet! oh boy!)

Anyway. I need to work on the final Chapters of ‘Almira‘ so here’s a Post from 2012, titled:

“St Valentine, was he a roger or was he a clark…the Wakefield Doctrine deals with the important questions of the day.”*

“No, it’s ok! I’m a Saint.”

St Valentines is the worst, most contrived and cynical, gyno-centric guy-bait(ing), toy-with-the-emotions-of-innocent-bystanders, holiday on the whole damn calendar. Of course we are all familiar with the origin of the holiday and the internet is positively turgid with countless blogs, and stories and articles that tell us all about Hallmark and the candy industry and the rest of the sordid tale of this day in February. I will not try to compete with these other more skilled and capable Commentators ( and -torinis), as I do not have the time or the ‘writing chops’ to do such a ripe topic justice. Instead, let me tell you about my most lasting memory of Valentines Day.

Third grade, parochial school (St. Imelda) and a classroom of 25 students. The boys were required to wear blue shirts and blue ties with OLM printed on the front, fortunately ‘clip-on ties’ had been invented by this time, so easy-peasy; the girls wore the catholic school uniform, i.e. plaid skirts white shirt, socks. damn, little did I realize at that pre-pubescent time of my life how potent that little Roman Catholic Church fashion dictates would become for me and countless other men at a later stage of life.
So with much fanfare, Valentine’s Day arrives and we 9-year-old boys and girls are told that in the afternoon, before the end of the school day, we would have time to deliver our Valentine cards to each other. ( The day before we spent ‘Art Period’ making little baskets out of construction paper and taping them to the front of our desks. These would serve as ‘mailboxes’ for the cards we would receive the next day).
The thing was, the horrible twist to this introduction to the world of love, relationships and rejection was that, the time when class stopped and we were allowed to get up and deliver our little cards was not the end of the school day! It was right after lunch… and it lasted 15 or 20 minutes…as in ‘ now return to your desks and we will continue with the afternoon’ classes’. To sit for 90 minutes staring at the contents of the container on the front of my desk… I will leave it to the Reader to decide the emotional landscape of that afternoon on a February 14th.

Anyone out there not comfortable with finishing the story, or satisfied with their conclusion of this little tale, write us a Comment! Regular Readers Students of the Doctrine know that the rogers gave the biggest cards, the scotts received the most cards and the clarks delivered the most cards(….secretly without the recipient ever knowing who the really fun card came from.)

Now I better get back to work, before I get in trouble.

 

*edited for content and times**

** as in, ‘to account for the experience of (the) reality during which the events forming the subject of the post actually occurred and the effect of the passing time since, and it’s effect on the author.

ok, Back to Almira and the story of two girls growing up a lifetime apart but meeting once before parting.