Winter weather

It started this morning with freezing rain. A hard, almost metallic sounding tick, tick, ticking as the drops hit. Part of it was wet and froze on contact with the ground and covered the cars in ice; part of it was hard little pellets that stung when it hit exposed skin. The kids listened hopefully to the television, watching the scrolling list of delays and cancellations. Schools all around us were starting two hours late. The next district over from us closed completely. Their hopes diminished as it came closer and closer to time for the bus to arrive. But they held on until it was time to go out. Hope dies slowly when praying for a snow day.

Snow day, that magical phrase from childhood. A day to sit around, watch television, read, goof off or just pick on your siblings until you drive your parents out of their minds. Snow days were different when I was a kid. There weren’t as many as there are today. Of course, we also didn’t have busing in the city I grew up in. Television during the day was just a few network affiliates showing daytime soap operas, so that wasn’t much fun. But there was always the get on your siblings’ last nerve to fall back on. We did that a lot in our house anyway, didn’t really need a snow day.

Today we have busing, with long rural routes out where we live. The roads are often unpaved and can be treacherous when the ice forms. So they cancel school pretty regularly. The kids have satellite television now, so there’s usually something they can watch. And there are always video games to play; sometimes board games come out of the closets, too. Yet they still excel at picking on each other. They find a chink in one another’s armor and dig mercilessly at it until everyone is unhappy. By the next day, everyone is ready to go back to school.

Well, we finally got a bit of snow. It’s really been a mild winter here so far.