Valentine’s Day

Smack Down

By Nancy K. Crevier

What is so terrific about kissing? Cold noses, wet tongues, and chapped lips are just a few of the negatives to locking lips, not to mention being a handy way to spread germs. “The Kissing Disease,” as infectious mononucleosis is affectionately known, got its name due to the fact that this virus spreads through shared saliva. Allergy sufferers, particularly those with nut allergies, might want to bear in mind that at a 2001 meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, five percent of those attending reported a reaction to kissing someone who had eaten a nut product within six hours. The “Kiss of Death” takes on a whole new meaning….

But as one might suspect, the fun and positive aspects of kissing outweigh any downsides. Not only is kissing a great way to share affection, according to the Indiana University School of Medicine website, kissing reduces plaque by stimulating saliva, burns calories at the rate of two per minute, and exercises the facial muscles when approached enthusiastically. On top of that, a good, hearty smooch session reduces stress.

“There are many theories about how kissing began,” writes Diane Ackerman in her book A Natural History Of The Senses. “Some authorities, as noted, believe it evolved from the act of smelling someone’s face, inhaling them out of friendship or love to gauge their mood and well-being.” Mouth kissing may have begun when, to primitive man, “The hot air wafting from their mouths may have seemed a magical embodiment of the soul, and a kiss a way to fuse two souls,” she notes. It is not surprising, Ms Ackerman concludes, that the highly sensitive and responsive lips “make the mind and body surge with gorgeous sensations.”

Picking a partner with whom to pucker up can prove a challenge, though, if this ode to kissing that was unearthed by Newtown Bee publisher Scudder Smith while tidying up his office holds any truth. Undated and credited only to “An Amateur,” the poem apparently was submitted to an issue of The Bee of bygone days and as noted at the bottom was, “Evidently written by a young man of wide experience.”

How Girls Kiss

———

 [FOR THE BEE]

The Danbury girl, the pride of the world,

In her clinging and soulful way,

Absorbs it all with a yearning yawn,

As big as a bale of hay.

The Bethel girl bows her stately head,

And fixes her stylish lips

In a firm, hard way, and lets them go,

In spasmodic little snips.

The Hawleyville girl says never a word,

And you’d think she was rather tame,

With her practical view of the matter in hand

But she gets there all the same.

The Brookfield girl mindeth her specks,

And freezeth her face with a smile;

And she sticks out her lips like an open door,

And cheweth her gum meanwhile.

The Sandy Hook girl gets a grip on herself,

As she carefully takes off her hat;

Then she grabs her prize in a frenzied way,

Like a terrier shaking a rat.

The Redding girl, so gentle and sweet,

Lets her lips meet the coming kiss,

With a rapturous warmth, and the youthful

Souls,

Float away on a sea of bliss.

We have sung the song of the girls that kiss,

And it sets our brain in a whirl.

But, to reach the height of perfect bliss,

You must kiss a — Newtown girl.

With your arm around her waist, her face

Upturned,

In a sweet, confiding way;

You care not a cent for the wide, wide world

Though the wind through your whiskers play.

And closer together your lips do draw,

‘Till they meet in a rapturous glow;

And the small boy hidden behind the fence,

Cries, “Gallager, let her go!”