Happy Lupercalia Day!

According to tradition, Valentine was a Catholic bishop who was martyred for his faith. He's now omitted from the calendar of saints' days because he probably never existed. His festival was on the 14th of February, but the custom of sending ‘valentines’ to a loved one on that day seems to have arisen because the day coincided with the Roman mid-February festival of Lupercalia.

Lupercalia was a festival in celebration of Romulus and Remus, the two brothers who were supposedly raised by wolves (like Tom Cruise). So how was the original holiday celebrated?

Two village boys were annointed with blood and milk, and then (dressed in goat skins) they went running through the town streets with whips, hitting anyone they could. It was a purification ceremony of sorts. You were lucky if you got hit.

In fact, this is where the month February gets it's name; from the Roman word februa, which means purification.

As time went by, a sort of lottery system evolved, where available girls put their names in a box to be drawn out by the young men of the city. Look at it as the first recorded instance of "blind dates".

Typical of the Catholic Church, in it's continued attempt to absorb and replace pagan traditions, Lupercalia was eventually compromised to a "saint" day, and people drew the names of different saints, instead of phone numbers.

You can see why this never took off.

Eventualy the singles lottery emerged again during the medieval days of romance and chivalry. And from there, it evolved into the actual exchanging of valentines.

I think we make too much of Valentine's Day. There are many people who are very depressed on this day, because they're without a "significant other". And for many of us, our true valentines are our children or our families, no matter whom may come into (or walk out of) our lives.

So, I am recommending that we go back to Lupercalia festivities. Of course the jewelers may be reluctant about this, I'm sure. But instead of churning out diamond-studded whatnots, they could create jewelry in the theme of wolves.

Card companies could start putting out little sentiments that emphasize how family-oriented wolves are, and how wolves mate for life.

Instead of the occasional Olympic torch running, we would now have youths dressed in goatskin, running yearly through the streets with whips. And because it's good luck to be whipped, we'll all have a front row seat to see every member in Congress line up for a much-deserved whipping.

It could work.