Emily and the kids are off today because of the snow and the cold. It was 11 outside this morning and the roads were a bit of a mess so it was the right thing for the county to call off classes today. I just wish they hadn’t called at 4:35 am. We are very lucky (I think) that the county uses a robocaller to alert teachers and parents to closures, announcements, etc. We just need to work on the clock…
When I was a kid, we had to wait for the tv station to scroll our county across the screen. The closest station was 100 miles or so away. I am not sure it mattered but our little rural area was not terribly important to anyone else. Honestly, they never cancelled or delayed anyhow so there really wasn’t much to watch for anyhow. We just went to school every day. More than once I remember sitting on the bus waiting for a plow truck to come so we could follow it down the hill and get to school. I also remember one time when the bus tried to make it up the hill to the school. As the bus started spinning and sliding (even with chains on), the driver stopped it and we had to walk the rest of the way in the snow (we weren’t barefoot but it was up hill!)
I don’t want to go on about how easy kids have it nowadays, but it was just different. I am sort of jealous though! Anyhow, I am sure that the family is enjoying sleeping in while I slave away at the office! Snow days are special days in my book and I truly hope the kids enjoy a little extra time to relax. Heck, by tomorrow it may be 70 again and we will be outside in shorts (if only we were so lucky)…
One poor teacher at GW did not get the “call”. He was all alone at school….and not real happy.
I was just telling my wife similar tales yesterday about how kids these days have it lucky when they cancel school. (We got the call at 5:00, still plenty early in my opinion.) Since my family didn’t have a television, our only source for school closings was the radio which listed half a dozen schools or so scrunched in with the weather inbetween songs. So it might take them an hour before they got around to listing our school. More than once I would be shivering my butt off in a blizzard waiting for a bus that never came when my mom would holler out the door that school must be cancelled.
Another similarity in stories is that I remember our bus getting stuck more than once and having to be pulled out by a farmer’s tractor or truck. We had lots of bets on the bus about whether the chevy or the international would be able to pull us out.
It WAS different! We were like postmen back then!!
This has been a weird winter.
Yes, the automated school call does need some work. We get those too (usually for flash flooding/school closing). The 4:30 am thing seems to be system wide. Maybe they’re thinking, “Well, if we’re up watching the roads/weather, everyone else should be too!”