It was Feb. 6, 1953. The whole of Macalester held its breath for the onslaught of love that would bear down upon campus in the next week. We can imagine socks being ironed for the raging co-ed sockhops, modest cotton dresses flying off the shelves and hands being lotioned in preparation for a night of sensible handholding. The students of the past prepared themselves for the best and worst that this season of affection had to offer. Amidst it all, our beloved The Mac Weekly published the headline, “THE SLINGS AND ARROWS OF OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE.” The war in Korea was raging, but even in the distant past, Mac students knew where their priorities lay. It was the feast of St. Valentine that “brought the well known but seldom photographed cupid to the Macalester campus. One of these rare photographs shows Cupid giving students Barb Canton and Dick Stright the proper ‘Hearts and Flowers’ spirit.”
Welcome back to Way Back at Mac, everyone’s favorite column where The Mac Weekly scours our records for funny, interesting or generally bizarre happenings in our campus history and their coverage in our paper. This being the middle of February, we turn our attention to Valentine’s Day. This lovely holiday has quite the history on our campus, and we have attempted to do it justice.
Macalester students love all the different kinds of love. Not only can we prove this through the literal physical presence of Cupid in our midst (as pictured), but we can look to the historical record to see how our love for each other has burned just as bright through each year of Mac’s existence. Before The Mac Weekly even began, there was The College Echo — Macalester’s very first student newspaper. It is within this early work that we find the very first description of a Valentine’s Day at Macalester. This mention is not in support but is instead a haranguing of the student body for their creative ways of celebration. The author laments the mere possibility of silly or distasteful Valentine’s Day gifts.
“The observance of St. Valentine’s Day is all right enough, so long as it is confined to the sending of legitimate tokens that are suggestive of affection or admiration, but when it degenerates into a time for the exhibition of petty spite or malicious dislike it is time to call a halt. Of all the brutal things extant the so-called ‘comic’ valentine is the worst and should be suppressed. No fair-minded person will send one to anybody, and their circulation should be limited by good taste and judgment,” The College Echo published in 1890.
This message was, oddly enough, published by an agent from a local railroad company. Though the message later transitions into an advert for a newly expanding railroad line, the agent still found it necessary to shun these most mischievous valentines. As we should expect, this ad didn’t have any long-term effects. A few decades later, we see that good fun reigns supreme. While couples were off doing whatever it is that they do, the rest of Macalester was focusing on what matters: parties.
The Mac Weekly’s 1927 Valentine’s Day issue, published on Feb. 18, reported: “Attic parties are quite the thing for those who have attics, as everyone agreed who attended the Philogian-Hyperion party, held the evening of Wednesday, February 16th.”
Though basements are now the preference, it is an honor to continue this long-standing tradition. We’re not sure who the Philogian Hyperions are exactly, but their two mentions in the whole of our run indicate fun-loving folks. Corrine Mucke, the only named Philogian Hyperion on record, just barely missed the great attic party of 1927. In 1932, she entered and exited history when she “acted the part of a door mouse in a skit from ‘Alice In Wonderland’ at the Philogian Hyperion joint.” What other comical skits were performed at the Philogian-Hyperion joint may never be known.
The forties brought celebrations of much greater intensity. Romanticism came to the forefront after having been kept somewhat secret in earlier writings. This romantic revolution was not all hearts and flowers, as the appearance of Cupid would have you believe. In early 1940, The Leap Year Dance was prefaced with an ultimatum from the women of Macalester: “From here on you’re on your own. Please report all casualties and broken hearts to the committee. Don’t take no for an answer! Don’t be too forceful and we’ll be seeing you at the Women’s Off-campus ‘Leap Year Dance.’” It is not said in later issues how this proclamation affected attendance.
Valentine’s Day, apart from a chance to love, party and do mischief, is also a time of art. Jim Bolker ’74, a member of the Chanter’s 1971 editorial triumvirate, penned a celebratory poem for The Mac Weekly’s now (tragically) defunct poetry section. Though he does not offer an explanatory note, Bolker’s work doesn’t reek of optimism.
The poem “Valentines” reads: “Like when you go to a museum / and there’s one in a bottle / and it’s all discolored / and white and brown, / and the veins aren’t even dyed blue.”
We can only hope that Bolker’s luck improved. Directly adjacent is a work by a fellow classmate who celebrated in an inverse but equally valid way. Unfortunately, this being a family newspaper, we cannot print the text of this poem. The author has successfully pursued medical work and is probably still living an exciting life.
The unsteady fires of the heart burned just as bright in their day. And just as affections could be found, they could also be lost. Luckily for all Scots, Norm Machick was on the case. As the owner of a local pharmacy in the late 1930s, Machick Norm committed himself to aiding those students who were entwined in the more complex affairs of this holiday. For the Feb. 10, 1938 issue of The Mac Weekly, the Macalester Pharmacy submitted the following advertisement in hopes to reach students in need of Valentine remedies.
“‘HI-YAH, SWEETHEART’ Repair that bleeding heart with some heart candy on St. Valentine’s Day. And for those minor heart throbs we have Valentines of all types and descriptions. Come on, youse guys and gals– bring that affaire d’amour to Norm Malchick– he’ll fix it up for you.”
Today, Macalester’s Valentine’s Day festivities may not include sockhops or attic parties, but we do have the Tralentines and Sirenades, singing telegrams of either love or embarrassment, depending on the receiving party. This tradition began back in February 1996, when the Trads and the Sirens used the event as a fundraiser to sponsor a group trip out to the East Coast to perform. Nowadays, the money raised from all of this singing is donated to charity.
A very modern feature of Valentine’s Day at Macalester is Datamatch, which arrived on our campus’s digital scene in 2022 through Program Board and has appeared in our emails each year since.
Over the 150+ year history of our college, traditions have come and gone. From publishing poetry for all to read to dating websites only used one month out of the year, it seems this campus has seen it all. It just begs the question: what new methods will future students invent to celebrate romance, friendship and the love of good chocolate? Only time will tell.
