O Winter, Ruler of the Inverted Year!

And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins. Algernon Charles Swinburne

The Summer's flower Though to itself it is to summer sweet, only live and die. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.

THE GREETING CARD

Text continued from page 20 Rome: mass-produced medals addressed to Emperor Hadrian, who reigned from A.D. 117 to A.D. 138. The ruler's portrait was impressed on one side, New Year's greetings “from the Senate and People of Rome” on the other.

Ready-made New Year's cards in the form of crude woodcuts appeared in Germany during the 1450s. By the 16th century, woodcuts were artistic achievements and New Year's cards bore illustrations of the Christ Child, crediting him with “bringing a good year.” Viennese engravers and printers did a big business throughout Europe with New Year's cards until well into the 19th century.

With modern times, New Year's Day became part of one holiday season; two days-Christmas and New Year's, or the Jewish Hanukkah and New Year's, melded into single greetings.

Valentine greetings have roots in an old Roman feast, Lupercalia, which became St. Valentine's Day. Dedicated to the pastoral god Lupercus and the love goddess Juno, the feast was celebrated on February 14. According to the oracles, the date also marked the beginnings of mating season for the birds of Italy.

For 14 centuries the Roman Catholic Church fought the “pagan love lotteries” associated with Lupercalia. Roman maidens wrote their names on slips and put them in an urn. Bachelors then drew the slips to determine their blind dates for the coming year.

Tradition holds the first Valentine was sent in A.D. 270 by St. Valentine himself, on the eve of his martyrdom.

Signed “From your Valentine,” it was a note of appreciation from the cleric to his jailer's blind daughter, who brought him food and delivered his messages.

As late as the 16th century, the Church of England forbad the exchange of Valentines as immoral, but the custom persisted. The first American Valentines date back to the Revolution. Mostly handmade, the colonial creations featured graceful penand-ink drawings illustrating sentimental verses written in flowing script. From the 1850s to the early 1900s Vinegar Valentines, masterpieces of insult, anonymously sent, became the rage.Meanwhile, back in the 17th century.... According to custom and habit, European apprentices far from home went “mothering” one Sunday each year, sending home letters of greeting. Today they're called Mother's Day cards.

And Grandparent's Day? It was first celebrated on the second Sunday of September, 1978, six weeks after President Carter declared it a national commemorative holiday.

“To get those cards to the stores,” says one publisher of greeting cards, “we practically short-circuited our systems.” And all because we Americans have been on the move. Our extended family has become nuclear. Parents and grandparents no longer live around the corner.

No wonder that hypothetical 29-yearold woman spends her lunch hours selecting printed messages that warm a heart, pat a back, ease a pain, tickle a funny bone, or just say “Hi.” She has embraced an ages-old tradition and made it her own, and the sentiments her messages celebrate are as old-and as new again-as the human need to communicate.

P. S. The card she just sent me is illustrated with a slenderized Santa (is he dieting, too?) and the admonition to “Have a merry one.”

COVERING THE HOLIDAYS

Over the years much attention has been given to Arizona Highways covers. Some of the West's finest photographers and artists have collaborated in creating memorable images of season's greetings. Editors' choices include two classics by Allen C. Reed: 1953, A Christmas CardWestern Style, and 1954, A Cowboy's Christmas. For 1955 Josef Muench produced Desert Christmas Card. Pictured also is Esther Henderson's Christmas at the Ranch, 1958. And for 1963 Josef Muench wrapped Darwin Van Campen's evergreen in a pyracantha wreath. L. Brownell McGrew painted My Children's Christmas Toys for the 1970 double cover. Glorious Sunset was captured by Dick Dietrich for 1973. Photographer Paul Markow and Designer D.J. Sanchez combined talents for Wreath for 1976. David Muench and Bill Daniels supplied photographs for the 1977 treatment. Josef Muench was back in 1979 with his Portrait of a Cereus Cactus. Perhaps the most popular cover of recent years was Angels and the Lord's Candle by the late Ted De Grazia. And that about covers it!