Dear Lee,

Holidays are often not what they seem. Presidents’ Day is no longer on a President’s birthday. And Valentine’s Day was not a loving event. It started out as a dangerous feast with naked men whipping women to encourage pregnancy and then picking names to decide if the pair would mate for life. (How romantic.) Or if that history doesn’t seem right, try this legend: A feast was named for a martyr, St. Valentine, by the Catholic Church in 496 A.D. (Still not romantic.) Modern historians seem to think Valentine’s Day started in the 14th century as the beginning of spring and the birds’ mating season. (We are getting closer.) We do know the first still surviving valentine dates from 1477, and later, Shakespeare wrote a poem that seems to be a valentine.

But we celebrate the Valentine’s Day of 1797, when homemade cards with romantic messages were given to friends. (Here we go. Romance at last!) That is when Esther Howland of Worcester, Mass., began making valentines to sell. They were handmade with paper pictures and lace. In the 1890s, mechanical cards with moving parts were new and stylish.

But all was not love and joy. (Here we go again.) Starting in the 1830s, there were also “penny dreadfuls” or “vinegar valentines” for adults that were embarrassing and insulting. Poems rudely commented about a big nose, talking too much, a bad golf game or even being dumb. And these flimsy pieces of paper were never signed. It was your great-great-great-great grandparent’s version of bullying.

By the late 1800s, there were machines that could emboss fancy cards. But the easiest cards to find today are picture postcards from the early 1900s to the 1920s. Other additions are cards with honeycomb tissue that started in about 1840 and cards called “folders” in the 1930s. But it’s the die-cut cards that might be saved in a box at Grandma’s you can easily collect today. Dime stores sold boxes of cards to be handed out at school. (Not romance in the traditional sense, but warm and fuzzy nonetheless.)

This Valentine’s Day, find a funny, friendly card to mail, or send a last-minute email card. It can even play music and a video, but the message (back to sweet messages, of course!) remains: “Will you be my Valentine?” Ahhhh. Romance.

Happy Valentine’s Day!