a LoveBundle with a LoveBug for your LovedOne (valentine's day 1971)

 New York Daily News, February 8, 1971.

How many people wandered around North America with LoveBug corsages pinned to their heart on Valentine's Day half-a-century ago? If the answer was "not many," it wasn't for a lack of trying as FTD filled newspapers across the US and Canada with ads featuring the LoveBug and his LoveBundle.

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, February 7, 1971.

I'm trying to figure out if the triangle sticking out of the LoveBug is part of the ribbon or is his tongue. It's possible that the LoveBug was a cousin of the Tim Horton's Timbit character and Thing from TVO's Readalong.

Schematic diagram of the LoveBundle, Ottawa Citizen, February 4, 1971.

In Ottawa, the Citizen offered two LoveBundles as prizes in a children's colouring contest. "Some 400 children got out their colouring materials, set their mouths just right and coloured the bouquet called a LoveBundle," Citizen women's editor Shirley Foley noted. One winner promised the prize would go to her mother, the other to her aunt.

Ottawa Citizen, February 4, 1971.

If a LoveBug didn't fit your style, how about a Flower Poodle?

Rochester Chronicle and Democrat, February 7, 1971.

Or how about a pin from your friendly neighbourhood banker?

New York Daily News, February 12, 1971, with added colour tinting.

In its February 14th edition that year, the New York Daily News published "a valentine to fellow New Yorkers" from poet-postman Sammy Kurland:

It was Valentine's Day and all through the city
I was feeling romantic, poetic and witty
I walked here and there, a smile or two
And was soon up to here in doggie doo
Now how the hell can I think of love
When a pigeon gets me from above?
Sometimes I think and have so stated
That I wish these birds were constipated

In picket lines we lead the nation
With cops and firemen and sanitation
A teacher's strike and students, too,
With taxicabs and phones snafu
The Women's Lib and also the Gay
The Protestants and the IRA*
The Arabs and the JDL**
And subway service slow as hell

We have blackouts and pollution
New Yorkers need a strong constitution
We get along with all creeds and races
And use the Waldorf for welfare cases
New Yorkers are ready for whatever's the latest
Happy Valentine, Fun City - the Greatest!

*Irish Republican Army, a reference to the troubles in Northern Ireland
**Jewish Defense League, a reference to the troubles in the Middle East

Detroit Free Press, February 14, 1971.

Wherever you are, enjoy your pink cloud as best as you can (depending on the circumstances).