My folks, per Tom Brokaw, were of The Greatest Generation. Raised in The Great Depression. Married in 1944. Farmed. Saved everything, always and forever.

Decades now since their passing, I’m still going through boxes. I never saw them kiss, but was not surprised to find… They saved each other’s Valentines.

Tom Thrun, a retired weekly newspaper editor in Wisconsin and Washington State, resides with his wife in Oconomowoc, WI. He is an incurable romantic, known to stay up late for Hallmark movies and reruns of Tom and Meg in Sleepless in Seattle, his red farmer handkerchief ready.