There are two things I remember about snow as a child: one I considered good and the other I considered bad.
We’ll start off with the bad.
It seems it snowed more in rural Indiana in the 1980’s than it does now. The chance of a white Christmas was likely, as was the chance for indoor recess. The only light we got in the winter months, arriving in the dark and leaving at dusk, was fluorescent. The smell of chicken nuggets or square pizza always filled the hallways, even as we played board games at four desks arranged in a rectangle, played M.A.S.H, or watched the class clown eat glue. A hall monitor popped in every once in a while to remind us to keep our voices down while we missed playing kickball in the corner of the playground.
But on snow days it was a different story. It was the best day of the year.
Of course, I don’t know how we learned about snow days back then. I imagine it was the nightly local news or a local newspaper, but I do know that we anxiously awaited the news that would allow us to be outside of a box for at least one day. It didn’t matter that we would have to make them up in the summer months, that we might have to get out of school a few days after Memorial Day. All that mattered was that in the long months of January or February, we could play in the frozen wonderland.
I’ll admit, at times it was difficult to get the nylon pants over the thermal underwear and sweats on the top and bottom; you had to know to put two or three pairs of socks on first so that they wouldn’t fall down; it was also important to put your gloves on before your jacket for the same reason. The only skin left for the below-freezing temperatures was your face. But as soon as everyone was bundled up, the possibilities were endless.
Some of us just liked to spend the day on the sledding hills, making ramps to see who could stay in the air the longest while others stayed along the fences where millions upon millions of snowflakes were carried by the wind, creating the perfect place for snow tunnels. Some families had snowmobiles. Their teenagers grabbed a rope from the shed, tied two or three sleds to the back, and the children lined up to go on a ride of their lives while other teens passed hour upon hour in the living room, blowing on NES cartridges, trying to beat Koopa.
I literally don’t remember anything else about winter or school as a child. Only recess inside or a snow day.
My kids did not get to experience winter in the same manner. We still lived in the rural Midwest, but snow days were not guaranteed each year, in fact, it seemed that school districts fought against them. On days when they did get off, snow was scarce; it was the razor-sharp temperatures that kept them home. Still, they loved the prospect, even flushing ice cubes down the toilet to beg Mother Nature to keep her winter promises.
In the last two years, kids simply haven’t been able to be kids—as prescribed by the way their parents lived their childhoods. They’ve missed their practices and games, had to learn math facts through a screen, and had to guess what their classmates look like below the nose. But even before that, these kids have had to wonder if the morning they walk into school is the morning that they will be shot; they’ve had to question if they will live to be 50 or if the carbon load in the air will cause a mass extinction; they’ve had to think about why the adults in the room don’t stop the bullying and intimidation.
The great thing about Tuesday night is that many of those worries went away. Even though some kids were required to spend an hour or two in virtual learning, most students in the state of Illinois got word that Wednesday, maybe Thursday, maybe Friday, they would have temperatures warm enough to breathe in and snow deep enough to cover their ruler (if kids even still have those).
And while their parents were shoveling the first round of snow off the driveway or while they were on Facebook asking if it was safe enough to drive into town, many kids were just outside. They met up with their buddies or held the hands of their siblings to find the wonder in snow angels and snowmen, to use their sand toys as igloo building toys, to make snow ice cream with the three gallons of milk in their fridge.
For this week, these kids are just being kids who one day will become adults, and remember the snowstorm of 2022 as a time when all of the boxes they are stuffed in day-after-day turned into something magical.
