Let It Snow

We're supposed to get our first major snow storm of the season on Friday and it'll likely continue into early next week. Schools will be delayed or cancelled and they'll alert their communities through websites and news bulletins. Kids will wake up at their normal time, click on a website, and decide whether or not to fall back asleep.

When I was growing up in the 80's and 90's, the Troll and I had a very sophisticated way of finding out whether or not school had been cancelled. We would wake up at 5am and flip the alarm clock dial to WBZ. We would then tune into WHDH, hit mute, and watch for the alphabetized list of school closings to scroll across the bottom of the screen. We would high five in glee when we learned that the neighboring towns of Brockton, Canton, and Avon had all cancelled school. Then we would wait. And wait. And wait for Gary Lapier to do his micro machine man impression until he hit the S towns (and then he'd usually go into a commercial break). Stoughton would usually wait until 6:30 to announce a school closing, by which point the Troll and I would be already be alert, awake, and decked out with perfectly coiffed early 90's bangs. At that point there was nothing left to do but shovel the driveway for 2 hours while grumbling that we'd rather be in school.

Obviously the Internet makes planning your snow day a lot easier but there's still something romantic about the anticipation of hearing the news live. I would hang off the edge of the seat after Stoneham was announced and be awashed in disappointment when Stoughton was skipped and they would go right into Stow. Of course when you become an adult there's no such thing as a snow day, but now that I have a service to plow out my parking lot I certainly wish there were.