I developed an awe of the men (I never saw a woman) who worked for CalTrans at all hours and conditions, keeping the roads open. 
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I don’t remember snow days when I was in school. That’s because school never closed for snow or cold winter days. We had warm hats, scarves, mittens, boots, and snowsuits. Think Ralph’s little brother in A Christmas Story. And we walked to and from school. So, it’s no surprise that I pulled my three little kids on a sled to school one snowy day so the oldest two could go to school, only to discover school was closed. This was my first encounter with snow days.

In my defense, the internet, cell phones, texting, etc. didn’t exist back then. I’m not sure how I was supposed to know it was a snow day. Maybe I missed the call from the school secretary while I was pulling that sled. My memory is that snow days were infrequent for my kids and a fun break from school. Because there so few of them, I don’t recall having to make them up at the end of the school year.

For my grandkids, snow days were more frequent. In January, 2014, we experienced a snow/cold snap that extended Winter Vacation by several days. At this point, most parents were suffering from frozen spirits and minds, numbed by the challenge of finding even more indoor activities for their housebound children, who had missed 18 days of school and counting … Traditional winter delights were out:

• No sledding – too cold
• No ice skating – not only too cold but how to find the ice under all of that snow
• No field trips – car is also frozen

That January, my four-year-old grandson “attended” preschool five half-days a week in Indiana. I use the term “attended” loosely because since winter vacation ended January 3, he had gone to school five times. That’s right, he had 14 “snow” days before finally returning to school. That same winter, my local granddaughters spent several days playing in my basement when it was too cold to go outside for a chunk of time that extended Winter Vacation an extra week.

That did leave lots of screen (and screaming) time. One of the days, I asked my 7-year-old granddaughter to make a list of what we could do to entertain ourselves while the -45 wind-chill raged outside.  Here’s her 9-point plan:

1. Bake a challah
2. Balloons (as in blow up, tie, and hit with an old badminton racket)
3. Wacky string (to be squirted all over my basement)
4. Bowling (home plastic version with her keeping score and mysteriously beating her sisters)
5. Roller blades and scooters (also all over my basement)
6. Dance to What Does the Fox Say?
7. Have a pajama party
8. Watch a movie (maybe The Swan Princess for the 25^th time)
9. Maybe do a hard puzzle or build something with Legos

My grandkids may have been bored, but at least they were safe. What about all of the kids whose parents didn’t have sitters or grandmothers crazy enough to entertain them? Snow days create tough choices for them. I doubt their employers gave them paid snow days off of work, so they had to choose between non-paid time off work, the threat of losing their job, or leaving their kids home alone. For some children, school is their safe haven and the place where they receive two of their daily meals. Was anyone thinking about them?

I know from 25 years of personal experience as a preschool administrator how hard it is to make the decision to close school. Generally, we did it whenever our local public schools also closed. And that was almost always due to massive amounts of snow and ice making travel dangerous and parking impossible.

On days I kept the school open despite bad weather, mostly because our public schools were also open, teachers were surprised that people showed up – lots of them. Maybe these parents had older kids and were out anyhow. Maybe they had children with special needs for whom a break in the routine was a disaster. Maybe they walked, pulling their kids in sleds, veterans of Chicago-style winters. I made no judgments regarding their decision to come or about parents who opted to keep their children home.

Here’s a great snow day story. The superintendent of Brownsburg, Indiana schools decided to keep schools open on a snowy, cold January day during the years when the weather was more typical of midwestern winters. He was deluged by tweets and Facebook posts decrying the decision. One parent asked, “How would you like to stand at the bus stop with my kids in this weather?” His answer was, “Sure, tell me when and where.”  He showed up at her bus stop with shirts for the kids that said #Bulldog Strong and waited with them for that bus. Bravo for literally taking a stand on this issue.

These days, we have gotten to the point of closing schools based on weather forecasts, which are often wrong. Now that schools, post-pandemic, are capable of having remote learning days, there are even more school closings, but instead of snow days when kids could play outside (weather permitting), they are stuck in front of a computer doing zoom lessons. I think romping in piles of snow or playing in grandma’s basement for a good, old-fashioned snow day is probably better for kids in the long run.

 

 

“My ex-husband thought of himself as a ‘breast man.’” She paused. “What have I gotten myself tangled up with here? A ‘floor man?’”
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The first charm is the card above, which was made for and given to me by my fairy godmother, Lenora Perkins.  Lenora taught me to shrug off stress.  She never prescribed anything to anyone.  I learned this by watching her.

If a situation aggravated Lenora, she’d stop, compose herself, stare into space for a few seconds, to understand and master both the experience and her emotions, and then…she’d shrug, you know, hunch both shoulders a little toward her ears, lower them.  Then she’d shake her head, slow and thoughtful, and then she’d move on, usually commenting on something she found cheerful.

If the source of aggravation was an arrogant, pretentious person, she’d fix them with her stare, and then signify her recognition of them by making a classic gesture.  She’d place one forefinger below the tip of her nose and slowly push her head back until it attained haute haughtiness, which was both a mirror and a sharp rejection. Then she’d lower her head, shrug, shake her head, and either walk away or begin a cheerful, unrelated conversation with a by-stander.

In the Blandings novels of P G Wodehouse, there is a character named Uncle Fred, who says his mission in life is to “spread sweetness and light.”  That was Lenora.  She was brilliant, sweet, and exuberant.

 

The second charm is a poem written by Marion Mackles, a third grader at PS 61 in New York around 1970.  This poem appears in Wishes, Lies, and Dreams: Teaching Children to Write Poetry, by Kenneth Koch.  The phrase “swan of bees” is correct, and wonderful.

 

I saw a fancy dancy dress

hanging on a fancy dancy window

of red roses you could call it a red

rose window I put it on and I

danced to a swan of bees I put

it on a chair of rock and I looked

at the sky of hand I put on

my fancy dancy dress I fell

asleep and I had a dream

of a blue sky of roses and a

house of daisies

 

and I awoke and it was true

I saw everything I saw

sky of roses house of daisies a tree

of orange a book of apple and

I loved it all and I lived with it for

the rest of my life