Total Pageviews

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

SNOW DAZE




I need a snow day. One like when we were kids and Mom waited to wake us up for school. She had heard the dreaded news earlier that morning and cherished the extra minutes of solitude while we were still sleeping.

We rarely had snow days. I think the schools got extra money from the state for staying open, something I've never understood. Anyway, I can only remember a few. We would play Monopoly until someone got mad and quit, or turned the board over, or threw the game pieces across the room. OK, that was usually me, but my brother, Steve always cheated. We never went outside to build a snowman or have a snowball fight. Snow falls in this part of the country are always accompanied by 50 mile an hour winds and a 40 below wind chill factor. Most of our weather can be described as extreme, no matter the season.
Christmas of 2000 we had one of those snow storms that literally shut down the city. We were living in the country and I, fortunately, was on vacation or I never would have made it in to work. My son, Eric was a freshman in college and home for Christmas break. He was miserable but I was very happy to be snowed in with my kids. The electricity went down several times, leaving us with a fire in the fireplace to keep warm and board games for entertainment. There was no MTV or PlayStation, we only had each other. Eric and Lauren went outside and dug tunnels in the snow until the cold was unbearable.
We are flatlanders out here. We have no hills or slopes whatsoever. But we do have interstate overpasses, and we had a big one by our house. Sarah, Lauren and I went for a walk and saw our neighbors with their sleds going down the side of that overpass. They invited us to sled with them and we had so much fun. The hard part was walking back up the hill to go again, as we are used to walking on flat land. I think that was my favorite snow day and I spent it with my kids.
Yes, I think I need a snow day.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Followers





white punks