One of the perks of writing my column is hearing from you readers. I enjoy your calls and getting to visit with you at the grocery store and other places around town.

Recently, after I wrote a column about Valentine’s Day, I received a wonderful surprise in the mail. In the column I wrote about making valentines and a valentine box when I attended Morapos School. Grandparents Ted and Patty Myers of Hamilton talked about their childhood memories of Valentine’s Day with their grandchildren, Ava, 8, Saige, 7, and Brett, 4. (Their parents are Will and Sarah Myers of Craig.) They decided to make some valentines for me.

The children did a great job, too! I’ve put the valentines in my treasure box with other things I want to keep forever. Then a few days later, Patty Myers called me to say she had asked around and found out that some classrooms in the Moffat County Schools still make valentine boxes, depending on the teacher. I loved the surprise and feedback.

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It seems as if Valentine’s Day was just yesterday, but now St. Patrick’s Day is here already, and along with it come memories of days past.

One memory is of that day when I was an adult, and we had been living at Pipi’s Pasture for awhile. It was calving season, the ground was bare, and the morning was warm. Vicky, a young Simmental cow of mine, had just given birth to her calf. I decided to name the little heifer “Patty,” an appropriate name for the day.

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After I made sure the calf had nursed, I left for Craig to celebrate my Aunt Edith’s (Ottens) birthday. My dad, Kenneth Osborn, was coming up from his winter home at Battlement Mesa for the occasion. (Isn’t it funny what the brain chooses to remember?)

I’m trying to remember St. Patrick’s Day as a kid. As I recall, it wasn’t a “celebrate with a party” day at school, but we hung shamrocks on the windows and the teacher read us stories from “Instructor Magazine” and we probably studied about Ireland. Maybe we got a treat of shamrock sugar cookies with green icing, too.

Mostly I remember the tradition of getting pinched if we didn’t wear some green — I wonder where the tradition got its start — and getting pinched 10 times if we pinched somebody only to discover that person had hidden green (like green socks).

Dad usually got us with this trick. Early on St. Patrick’s Day morning we checked him out. When we didn’t find green, we pinched him only to have him pull a little piece of green out of his pocket.

Mom always fixed a festive St. Patrick’s Day supper. The menu usually included a cabbage dish, perhaps cabbage leaves stuffed with a hamburger mixture and then baked, and a green Jell-O salad. For dessert we had cupcakes or a cake with green icing. If we were able to get to Craig before the 17^th, we may have even had a lime sherbet treat.

According to the calendar, spring begins on the 20^th. It might not happen for awhile, but one thing is for sure — when St. Patrick’s Day comes around, spring is probably not too far off.