Snow Day 2019

Snow Day 2019 · 9 February 2019

I was going to write that snow days are not what they used to be. Then, I looked back and saw that I already wrote that. A couple years ago. Almost to the day. So while I will not quite recycle the post, I will recycle the idea.

Snow days are not quite what they used to be. I remember being a kid and loving to go out into the snow to build forts and have snowball fights. Oh, and wrestle in the snow. That was the fun part, wrestling around and shoving snow in each others’ faces and getting upset when somebody went too far. That did not happen all that often. Really. My siblings and I were pretty normal and so of course, we went too far at times, but since I was always bigger than everybody else (until we got to be nearly adults), I had to make sure I did not use my size to my advantage. At least not too much. So I got plenty of snow in my face and down my back and wherever else it was not supposed to be. And where it made you the coldest. But we always had a great time in the snow. We had those same great times when my own kids were younger (but I did not rub their faces in the snow).

The thing is, we did not miss many days of school just because we had snow on the ground when I was a kid. In reality, it seemed we only missed school when it snowed and it was too cold to go outside and enjoy the white stuff. It was not like we were in North Dakota or somewhere where they got real snow. But Colorado and the Spokane area were plenty used to snow. So we just bundled up and trundled to school, or at least to the bus stop, pretty much every day. And if we ever missed school because of the snow, we just watched the blizzard from inside. Until the conditions were right for us to go out and enjoy the snow.

The other thing we did whenever it snowed (whether we missed school or not) was shovel snow off the driveway. We did not have a snow blower. We just had shovels. I remember one night shoveling until what seemed like midnight. Actually, we were not shoveling at the end. We were pounding ice. One of my brothers and I were breaking up the ice that had formed because the car had been driven over the snow enough to pack it down. Underneath that packed down stuff was ice. So we were breaking all that stuff up. It took forever.

I do not think that one long, arduous, back-breaking night of shoveling snow and breaking ice off the driveway was some sort of punishment. But it was surely a lesson. It taught me to shovel the driveway right away. Make sure that the snow gets off the driveway before the car drives over it. Which is what I have pretty much done since that day. It snows, I shovel. It snows, I shovel. I learned to like the routine. It snows, I shovel.

Nowadays, I still like to shovel show. Really. I am not sure if it is just that old routine or a compulsion or what. I just know that I like to have the snow off all our vehicles and off the driveway and sidewalk. I suppose it probably is a bit compulsive. But I still do it. And I still enjoy it. Both the work and the result.

The snow did get removed from the places it is not supposed to be on this particular edition of Snow Day, but not much else happened. However, the night before, I got a bit of snow on my body. But I must not have taught my children very well since my son did not put it down my shirt. Just on it. And it happened in the house. (Thankfully, no indoor snowball fight broke out.)

Like I said, not much happened on this latest edition of Snow Day. But besides the shoveling, things are much different than they used to be. Even different than they were just a couple years ago.

[Note: We had a second snow day on which I made a YouTube video of what I did the first snow day.]

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