Well, it's only a week or so into the New Year, and we've already had a pretty good taste of winter weather. The commute was fairly annoying both Monday and today. The roads really weren't that bad (in some cities they were clean down to the pavement), but traffic was crawling along US 6 all the way into Cleveland anyway. And today, school was closed in Lorain, Sheffield Lake, Elyria and many other suburbs.
All this got me to thinking about snow days. I really don't remember getting off school all that much for snow days when we were little kids. Most of the time in the winter, we wore big, black boots over our shoes and punched our way through the snow drifts all the way to Masson Elementary, which was almost a mile away. We lived just outside the boundary that would have enabled us to ride the bus, but the bus carrying the kids over to the Sherwood allotment went right by our house.
When school actually was cancelled due to snow, my brothers and I did what the other kids did: go out and play in it! (Well, that and watch cartoons.) I still kid my mom that we weren't allowed to build a snowman in the front yard – it had to be in the backyard! And we didn't have a snowman kit, with plastic carrot, top hat, etc. – we used rocks from the window well for the eyes, nose and mouth. Nowadays, in this "Look at me!" age, it seems some families encourage their kids to build fantastic snow creations in the front yard in the hope of getting on the TV news.
If we were lucky, we were able to get a ride to either of the two preferred sledding hills: James Day Park or the Sanitarium (Golden Acres Lorain County Nursing Home.) I still cringe at the memory of getting wracked up while slamming into a tree at either of these two places!
Next week: Memories of the Blizzard of '78
No comments:
Post a Comment