Oscar was not a popular third grader.

He was not all that bright and was not the handsomest boy in Holy Cross Academy for young boys and girls for Catholic children of the blue collar workers wanting more than a public school education for their little darlings.

Holy Cross Elementary was a fine example of a parochial school environment that included religious education along with other required studies proscribed by the State Department of Education for all children from grade level 1 thru 8 in an Elementary School level as required by Federal law for all minor children.

The school was changing of late because of the influx of non-English speaking families into the city and now the school was filled with most youngsters that were hindered by their lack of language training to understand the textbooks used in the classes.

Oscar was only in the country three years now and his English was so-so because he still spoke his native Spanish at home with his non-English speaking parents and his elderly grandmother who had never been to any school anywhere and was unable to help them with their homework in either English or Spanish in any event except perhaps to tell them stories about the Saints and their special days in celebration of their life and work in promoting the faith in everyday life.

His nana Maria told Oscar of the life of Saint Valentine and his special place in the list of Saints and the reason why his feast day was on the Fourteenth of February each year.

He was confused because it sounded nothing like what they were all talking about in the stores with the candy hearts and the greeting cards with tiny angels shooting arrows into a guy’s behind to get him to kiss a girl.

Oscar had just turned nine years old and he didn’t think much about girls anyway.

He was still in a class with about a fifty-fifty split between boys and girls and wouldn’t have go enter an all boy class until the seventh grade when both girls and boys started to think more about kissing than regular stuff like basketball and trading baseball cards. He was jealous of his older sister Ramona because she had seen how important it was to learn English and never spoke Spanish at home like the rest of them. Most of the new English words he picked up were from her and he knew she was strong in her decision to learn English as fast as she possibly could because it was the way to continuing her education and getting a job when she was old enough to get her working papers.

Both Ramona and Oscar were automatic citizens because they were born inside the U.S.A., but her parents and grandmother had a way to go to get naturalized and join the other Americans.

He listened to his sister and went into the class that spoke English rather than the one that had a translator for the Spanish speaking children that needed help with their schoolwork in the language spoken at home.

It wasn’t long before his English got a lot better and he could read and write in English like most of the other students in the class. He often thought of the words of his Nana when she explained Saint Valentine to him in Spanish and he decided to write the story of Valentine’s day in English to show the others how much he had learned in the use of the English language in the past year.