Valentine’s Day Labors of Love Deliveries made, despite storm

BANGOR – Eric Lavin tightly clutched the clear glass vase, its big red bow pointed away from his body.

The 32-year-old Winterport man peeked around the cellophane covering a dozen long-stem red roses. He looked both ways to check the traffic, twice, before heading across Park Street.

Large snowflakes blew in his face as Lavin maneuvered between parked cars and over a low snowbank. With his free hand, he pushed open the door to the New Moon Cafe, where employees were preparing for a busy evening.

“Is an Emily here?” he asked, setting the vase down on the bar.

“Emily,” restaurant owner Paul Noonan hollered to the downstairs kitchen.

A minute later, cook Emily Garrett, 20, of Bradford gasped when told the flowers were for her.

“Oh, my goodness,” she said, delight spreading across her face. “What a surprise.”

The flowers and a heart-shaped box of candy were sent to her by her boyfriend Jeremy Hughes, who is in Bath, England, completing his culinary internship.

Garrett was just one of thousands of people around the state who received flowers on Valentine’s Day despite the blizzard that shut down schools, state government and many businesses.

Phil Frederick, owner of Bangor Floral, has been in the business more than 30 years. On Wednesday, he could recall just one other Valentine’s Day when things were worse – 1978, when a blizzard the week before made it difficult to get enough stock to meet the demand.

“We’ve been very lucky,” he said. “We’ve had decent weather most Valentine’s Days.”

The large number of closings meant some last minute changes for drivers. Instead of delivering flowers to workplaces such as schools and state offices, Frederick redeployed employees to home addresses.

“We’ve gotten everything out that’s been changed,” he said at about noon.

The snowstorm limited deliveries to Bangor, Brewer, Hampden, Orono and Old Town. Normally, drivers also would travel to outlying communities, he said.

“Valentine’s Day is a last-minute holiday,” Frederick said, while men shook snow off their coats and stomped slush from their boots as they entered the former church on Center Street.

It’s also the biggest single day of the year for florists. Frederick hired 18 extra employees, 11 of them drivers, just to work the first three days of the week.

One of them was Lavin, who first worked for the florist in 1992 when he “started at the bottom, shucking thorns off roses.”

“It’s nice to see people smile,” he said when asked why he agreed to spend much of his day driving in the snow. “When you hand people roses, they smile.”

The vast majority of customers are men, and on average, each spends between $50 and $75, Frederick said, adding that many sales ring up in the $25 to $30 range.

Keith Parker, 21, and Jeff Theberge, 18, both of Orono would have been in their senior thesis class if the University of Maine hadn’t shut down classes. Instead, the two were able to drive to Bangor to buy flowers for their girlfriends not quite at the last minute.

The men also planned to brave the blizzard in the dark Wednesday evening to take their sweethearts out to dinner.

“It was worth the drive,” Parker said as he left the florist shop, his face hidden behind a bouquet of multicolored roses, “to make her happy.”

That’s most likely why a lot of men and a few women trudged through blinding snow to bring home flowers or candy for their valentines.