Love Pain

by Tricia Dower

In his book, Tsawalk, a Nuu-chah-nulth Worldview, Dr. E. Richard Atleo, professor and hereditary chief, tells us that one Nuu-chah-nulth word - yaw-uk-miss - translates as both love and pain in English. To Vancouver Island’s Nuu-chah-nulth Nation, “Love and pain exist quite naturally, without contradiction, as a unity of existence,” Atleo writes.

Gleaned from U.S. Census Data: Americans ate 26 pounds of candy and 160 pounds of refined sugar per capita in 2006. In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first “Conversation Hearts” — then called “Motto Hearts.” According to NECCO, eight billion of these little candies are sold between January 1 and February 14 each year. About 36 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are projected to be sold this Valentine's Day.

A week ago, an explosion – caused by static electricity igniting fine sugar dust – at an Imperial Sugar refinery in Georgia killed six people and injured 42. Eight of the injured were flown to a burn centre. The company had been criticized in a 2006 report of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for lack of preparation for such explosions. An investment analyst said if the plant is down more than a few weeks, it could have an impact on U.S. refined sugar prices. A shame about those casualties, too, eh?

In 2006, a man in Raleigh, NC, asked his girlfriend to marry him by writing her a 113-page proposal and publishing it as a paperback book entitled 50 Reasons Why You Should Marry Me…and 51 Reasons Why I Should Marry You. One of the reasons was, “I clean the bathroom every week.” She said “Yes”

In 2005, an Oregon man tried to organize a mass suicide through a Yahoo chat room, asking women to hang themselves naked on Valentine’s Day. A woman concerned that children might be harmed alerted authorities to the suicide plot. Detectives found six women who expressed interest, including a few who were mothers, but they denied planning to murder their children.

214 million roses are expected to be sold in the U.S. this Valentine’s Day and about a billion Valentine's Day cards will be exchanged. Teachers will receive the most cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and the intriguing “other.”

It’ll be a tough year for the jewelry industry with gold pushing historic prices of $920 an ounce. Some jewelers are trying to increase traffic by offering old jewelry exchange programs and credits to help with purchases of gold encrusted jewels. Maybe Bono can organize a benefit concert for starving jewelers. JewelAid?

Can’t afford jewels? There’s always sex. For several years, the sales of pregnancy tests and fertility test kits have spiked six weeks after Valentine’s Day.

The New York Times reported that a Bronx woman who turned down her boyfriend’s Valentine's Day marriage proposal in 2004 didn’t live very long after that. He cut out her heart and left it on the floor near her body. According to a friend of the deceased, she had told her boyfriend, “I need my space.”

The legend of how the priest who became Saint Valentine was put to death in third century Rome is just one of the “fun facts” at a website for kids.

If I could eat chocolate, it would be the bitter-sweet variety.

Happy V-Day!