Delay or Close?

School closed – those two words just make a child smile and a parent groan! But first we have to endure the “delay” nonsense. Excuse me but with a winter road advisory and sleet, that pretty much says “close the damn school!"

As a kid, school was rarely closed due to road conditions or just because snow had fallen over night. Plows were out all night and main roads were passable – after all, the principal and superintendent were able to get to school, hence school was open! For those of us who lived on side roads, plows got to us much later in the day and the thought of the bus getting down our road in the morning was totally impossible. However my mother wasn’t gonna let that stop us from attending school. Nope, bundle up warm my darlings, you’re gonna hike to the end of this road and the bus will pick you up – it was about a mile but as a kid it seemed like many miles!

Today if a parent did that, they’d be charged with child abuse, neglect or some other horrible term. In my youth we had this silly thing called respect for our parents and their word was the law and we obeyed them, what an amazing concept! And you know what, we survived too – we are not laying on some couch explaining a miserable childhood.


On those rare days when school was truly closed and Mom couldn’t send us anywhere, she would find ways to entertain us too. First we had to re do our homework and she’d check it – that was always fun. Then she’d haul out cookbooks and we’d march into the kitchen and begin making one mess after another – cookies, fudge, cupcakes and then Mom would shock us and say, “enough cooking, let’s play a game!” And within seconds, the Scrabble game was in front of us!

Mom loved scrabble and over the years she even used an egg timer to move the game along. When you got sick of this game, Dad usually showed up and without much fanfare announced; “get your coats, boots and gloves, we need to refill all the wood boxes!” By then, you were ready to do anything but continue playing Scrabble!

Once outside Dad would pepper you with snowballs because he’d made a pile before he called us outside to work and within a few minutes, we’d be in a full blown snow ball fight and Dad, well, he’d quietly sneak back inside and now both parents were sitting in a warm house, watching us kids throw snowballs at each other and inside it was peaceful and quiet.

Do what you want but make some memories with your kids today!