Snow Days

When we were growing up Snow Days were eagerly anticipated events. Before the Internet and our current instantaneous communication we literally had to listen to the AM radio to know whether our school system had been closed.

My Mom was always the first one awake in our house so she would switch on the little radio in the kitchen to begin the arduous process of listening for the status of the Ridgewood schools. My brothers and I would eventually shamble down from our warm beds to the kitchen to join her by the radio. We would all keep very quiet for fear of missing our school in the list of schools which was continually being updated and endlessly repeated.

Once the news was announced then a small celebration would begin and our minds would be filled with the wonder of how we would fill the hours in the day which had just been given to us.

My Dad on the other hand knew exactly how our day would begin: by shoveling our walk and driveway. This had to be done, whether we had a snow day or not, by the time he was ready to walk to the train station for his commute into Manhattan. There was no use pleading to him that nobody else had done their walks by 7:15 AM and that he would have to wade through the snow in front of their houses. He would just look at us and point to the door. He was a lawyer in those days and on these matters he was the judge and jury, too.