By Clara Glendale | Second-Rung-Holiday Features Writer

What do Bass Lake-area residents like and love the most (or best) about Valentine’s Day? We explored the so-called “heart of the matter” recently this week, after somebody in the newsroom realized Feb. 14 was coming up and we needed something related to that topic, and asked our readers and non-readers.

“I have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. So do me and my wife.”
— Mitch Mitchum, Nearbytown

“So many memories. Mother and Father would get we kids in the car and we would go out and we would find a Valentine’s Day tree and we would take it home and we would decorate it, then we would open gifts and we would eat candy and would shovel snow.”
— Gertrude Klein, 83, Bass Lake Retirement Community Homestead Inc.

“I like buying gifts I can’t afford for people I hate. Now leave me alone, I have a business to run.”
— Greg “Funky” Gregory, owner, Funky’s on the Bayou

“Cha-ching!”
— Johnny Wen, Beijing Bait & Tackle/Floral Shop, Bass Lake

“A more compelling question is this: Which is a more iconic dehumanized concept: St. Valentine (Saint Valentine of Rome to be exact) or St. Patrick? We can revisit that inquiry in a comparative exercise in March. Secondly, is February an appropriate time for a holiday based on love, as Lewis Black has suggested? And is Lewis Black the best person to gauge that concept? Maybe if he were dubbed “Saint Lewis Black,” which’d be funny in itself, then we can talk about martyrdom and secularism … (Additional comments may appear in a future print edition of the Beacon).
— Forrest  Bunkard, self-proclaimed local intellectual, underwritten by St. Methodist Catholic Church