WHAT SLOGAN WOULD YOU CHOOSE

Her name was Miss Norell, she taught second grade at old Washington School in Thief River Falls. She constructed a Valentine box that looked like a coach. It sat outside the class room. We put our cards in the box which would be opened and passed out later.

There was no rule about giving a card to everyone in the class. It wasn't like the cards were counted. Twenty-five kids didn't mean it had to equal twenty-five cards. Old Trunks wonders how many cards were in a pack. Was their less cards than class mates? Who got left out if parents only bought one pack. When my children were in school you brought for all.

Miss Norell made the cards she gave to each student. She was the kind of teacher that always found good things to say. Although I don't have the card anymore, I can see her beautiful teacher hand writing on the card, there were always candy hearts involved.

The packages of cards one bought at the dime store were little girls and little boys with lots of hearts. One read each one before deciding who got the cards with the most hearts. In shifting though cards now, one sees the influence of comic characters.

Which brings me to wonder if children are printing their cards from free printable sites on line and making their own envelopes out of paper stock. Do children of parents who have scrap booking supplies and rubber stamps make their own? Do they do it as if it is an assembly line?

And what about those candy hearts with words printed on them? What did we know about them as children? What do we know about them now!? Did you sift through them finding just the right words for the person?

Let's take a look at who, what, when and the candy hearts. For more than a century, the makers of NECCO Sweethearts Conversation Hearts have come up with some of the sweetest ways of saying "I love you." The candy hearts were first available during the Civil War. They were first machine manufactured in 1902. This means several of our ancestors ate them too. In the beginning a paper note was tucked inside. An example of a phrase was, "may I have a lock of your hair"?

Old Trunks has learned NECCO offers new saying each year. "Chill out" saying of 2008 is a long way from "kiss me" of the early years. Some favorites among the more than one hundred years of sweetheart sayings have been in circulation since the hearts were first factory-made in 1902.

These classics include "Kiss Me," "Sweet Talk," and "Be Mine." Sometimes a motto is discontinued for a time and then makes a reappearance; others are gone for good. Sayings considered outdated by NECCO include the funky "Dig Me" and the cheerful "You Are Gay."

It is said that you can have hearts custom made. The only problem is one has to buy the full run, which is 1.7 million hearts. And for those of us who stood by the candy counter at Woolworth's, we knew we couldn't buy them by color, rather by scoop.

Tell me if you can imagine eight billon candy hearts sold within six weeks?

Tom might suggest:
GO FISH


I may suggest:
I (/) M ME


Would my grand daughter would suggest:
TEXT ME

What would you suggest as a slogan?

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