Cécile Rischmann reminisces about pen pals and teenage Valentines, reflecting on a time when friendship and romance often grew slowly through handwritten letters.
Three beautiful schoolgirls—correction. One beautiful schoolgirl and two wallflowers. Green uniform, crisp white blouse, white Keds. An all-girls school governed by nuns, which meant beauty was noticed but never acknowledged.
Valentine’s Day loomed. The beautiful one received musical cards—some actually sang—stuffed with love dialogues that could give Shakespeare an inferiority complex. The two wallflowers wilted as their Valentines, for reasons unknown to mankind, were not buying. So they did the sensible thing: they got pen pals.