Uphill, both ways, without snow shoes but instead, something called galoshes over Pic Way shoes.
That’s right, that’s what it was like to be a kid in the 1970s, and our story will not change.
We didn’t have backpacks and our books were ridiculously gigantic and filled with mostly words and few photos. The boys, by the way, wore white shirts and long, polyester, blue pants and we had our NFL letterman jackets with matching toboggans, but the girls?
Thin white blouses, and skirts. With no real options. It was cruel, really.
And the snow seemed deeper and the temperatures lower, and our classrooms inside that old brick building were see-our-breath chilled with radiators waiting to scorch our bitterly brisk hands. Our recesses were moved from the church parking lots to inside the gymnasium, and at any second we were allowed outside, snowballs flew with ill intent.
But every once in a while, there was the “Snow Day.”
The “Snow Day” seemed like another Sacrament from The Lord to a Catholic kid praying for a break from the day-ins and day-outs of a grade school education, but that’s because they were very rare. We had to watch some weird WACO station on Channel 3, or we had to see it on WTRF TV-7 or hear it from the DJs on WKWK.
That’s what made it real.
There were early mornings, too, when the school doors would be locked even if the news didn’t report the call-off, and those days were extra blessed because we were up and ready for the thrills a sleigh ride offered. In and out of the cellar doors we went all day long, and our mothers – who were able to be home back in those days – would yell about our soaking wet clothing one moment and offer us hot cocoa the next.
Those inches of snow allowed us to ride our sleds and tubes, and we skied, played make-shift Olympics games, punished public buses, ate the white-colored snow when thirsty, and we were free from the chalkboards, the sour milk, the uniforms, and the wicked rulers of an angry nun.
“Snow Days” were truly glorious and never taken for granted since they were hard to come by “back in the day” because once upon a time ago a cold school and a slick and slippery bus ride were OK. Until they weren’t anymore, that is. Until Little Sally caught a bad cold and Little Jimmy’s busted and bloody nose – an injury sustained by smacking one’s face against the bus window during one of those adventurous rides – weren’t funny anymore.
And that’s when something called “liability” started meaning more than a day’s worth of education. It’s when the “Snow Day” became so common state governments had to approve and implement regulatory laws for minimum hours of classroom time because people would sue, and they would win because Little Sally’s bad cold and Little Jimmy’s nose were caused by bad judgment.
And now, a few flurries and temperatures below freezing are worthy of consideration, and now, the “Snow Day” just isn’t the same.
