A pleasant stop in Nebraska included a Valentine visit

Philatelic Foreword by Jay Bigalke

Sometimes, a random road trip takes you off the beaten path, and that’s just what happened this May. While planning a route between southeastern Nebraska and southwestern South Dakota, a Valentine’s Day-theme town name jumped out at me on the map.

Naturally, I had to schedule one of my stops at the Valentine, Neb., post office. On a sunny May morning, I walked into the post office, greeted the friendly postal clerk and introduced myself.

I then asked if she had any Love stamps available, to which she had to reply unfortunately no. I commented on the irony that of all places to not have Love stamps, Valentine probably shouldn’t make that list.

She apologized, saying she was unable to order more and that the Love stamps were very popular this year.

I settled for Tulips forever stamps from the pane and franked a couple of postcards to send to myself and my children.

I then carefully postmarked my postcards to prepare them for mailing. Pictured nearby is the rose postcard I had brought with me to mail to myself.

The clerk then asked if I wanted to apply any Valentine’s rubber stamps to the card and pulled out a huge box of handstamps. Two of the handstamps available are shown nearby, and some of them were quite large.

The one I used on my postcards shows a Nebraska state outline, three small hearts and a larger heart with an arrow through it, all illustrating the text “Valentine is Nebraska’s Heart City.”

Valentine is located in northwest central Nebraska and has a population of approximately 2,700.

The United States Postal Service maintains a list of other Valentine’s Day-related town names that have post offices.

Perhaps your future travels might take you past one of these towns, or one stands out as a postmark you might want to get when sending Valentine’s Day cards next year.

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