The next few days offer plenty of reasons for midwinter celebration, plenty of reasons to be happy and to enjoy time with family and friends.

Valentine’s Day happens today. I’m sure many people of all ages will get valentines and maybe eat out. It’s not just for couples. It’s a day to let all relatives and friends know that they’re important.

The main thing I remember about Valentine’s Day growing up was how everyone in my elementary school classes gave each other valentines. It was all inclusive. We didn’t limit it to just a small group of friends.

I believe those valentines meant something. Hopefully kids who were shy and maybe didn’t feel like they had many friends felt included. We each took a stack of valentines home and showed them to our parents. They enjoyed seeing the good wishes and hearing about our classmates.

Valentine’s Day was also a time for candy hearts with sayings such as “Be Mine”. It was usually a phrase that just meant “let’s be friends.”

Chocolates have always gone well with Valentine’s Day. My immediate family exchanged big cards and boxes of chocolates every year. I would eat just one at a time in order to make them last. They brightened wintry February days.

Forrest Gump said it best by stating that life is like a box of chocolates because you never know what you’re going to get. I’ve always bitten into chocolates because I’ve wanted to see what’s inside.

After the Valentine’s Day weekend we’ll observe Mardi Gras on Tuesday. Mardi Gras stands for Fat Tuesday, which symbolizes how it’s a day for parties before the solemness of the Lenten season.

I never thought much about Mardi Gras growing up. It was sometimes an occasion for dinners or parties given by churches or community groups, but Marshall didn’t have a community wide observance.

Therefore I mainly associated Mardi Gras with New Orleans. I knew it was a time for a parade, costumes and parties; but I’d never been there.

The movie Easy Rider showed me the wild side of Mardi Gras. I became familiar with the movie through a seminar at Southwest Minnesota State University taught by English professor David Pichaske called Culture in the Sixties.

Easy Rider features two bikers who drove motorcycles to New Orleans for a wild Mardi Gras. They experienced that and were then shot to death at the end of the movie in rural Louisiana when they were on their way home.

It became a Hollywood interpretation of 1960s rebellion, depicting main characters who rebelled against social norms.

I didn’t totally like Easy Rider as a modest college student. I thought the main characters went overboard with excessive celebrating that really didn’t have a purpose. I appreciate it more now because I respect how young people need to somehow experience life. They need to find themselves.

I experienced Mardi Gras in a much different way starting in my 20s when I made a trip to New Ulm on a Saturday to attend their German Mardi Gras, also known as Fasching.

It was held at Turner Hall, the home of New Ulm’s historic Turner Society. The celebration featured ethnic food, live music, costumes and locally brewed August Schell beer.

I went back five or six times for a family oriented Mardi Gras when winter driving conditions were good. Several times I met up with friends from the Twin Cities or other towns. It was a fun ethnic festival held to usher in the Easter season.

Each year everyone has the opportunity for good wholesome celebrating on Valentine’s Day and Mardi Gras. Life needs to have a balance. Winter is often drab. Lent is in many ways a season of sacrifice.

Nineteenth century New England author Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote about such a balance in his novels and short stories. He contrasted the stark, pious Puritan social norms with the desire to celebrate life.

Readers sympathize with Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, the potion swallowers in the story Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment, and the many other Hawthorne characters who had man against society conflicts.

We’re reminded of the 1960s song Blowing in the Wind since we hope protagonists find answers and sympathize when they don’t. We seek answers in our own lives. Sometimes we can find them even in the middle of winter, by taking small steps beyond the routine of daily life.

— Jim Muchlinski is a longtime reporter and contributor to the Marshall Independent