Remember When Snow Days Were True Snow Days?

Apparently yesterday marked forty years since the infamous "Blizzard of '78." I remember nothing of this blizzard, since I was still busy growing in utero, but I hear it was quite a disaster. (I've also heard that one of my sisters has some photos from that winter, but she hasn't unearthed them yet, so I can't show you what the old home place looked like back then.)

Even though our part of the state hasn't seen anything quite that spectacular since '78, I can remember pretty big snows coming through when I was a little girl. We lived out in the country, where drifts piled high. (A whole outdoor playground, right?)

(That's my beloved Lassie. Yes, Lassie was a Chihuahua. Don't ask.)

Back in those days, snow days were such fun. My parents both worked in the school system, so a snow day meant we all get to stay home together. We could sleep in, eat breakfast by the fireplace, and play allllllllllllllllllll day long. I could put together puzzles, play with paper dolls, read books, play board games, and end the day with a family hot dog roast right there in living room fireplace. 

Best of all, a snow day was a true snow day. An actual vacation day from school that didn't have to be made up later.

Sometime during my school years, the snow day rule changed and days off for snow meant days made up in warmer weather. And then of course, adulthood arrived, where snow days rarely happened at all.

I do remember one day during my freshman year of college, when I worked at a loan office about ten blocks from the dorm where I lived. The weather was pretty bad, but since the college was a residential campus, it never shut down. If professors couldn't make it in, they could cancel individual classes, but the school remained open. 

That day, many professors couldn't safely make it to campus, so groups of students ran around campus, building snowmen, making snow angels, and acting like overgrown kids. I decided I needed to get to work, but the roads were too treacherous to drive, and I didn't have time to dig out my car from the multiple inches of snow that buried it. So I strapped on some boots and started walking. I got all the way to the office and found a sign hanging on the door. Closed due to inclement weather.

So I turned around and walked ten blocks back to campus. No work, no pay, and after twenty blocks of walking, no fun.

When I got into the real world of adulthood (still working at the college) I only dared to dream about what I would do with a snow day. I actually wrote a post about it one day. All the things I thought I would do if only - if only - I could have a snow day. And what do you know!?!? The very next day I went to work and turned on my computer only to find an email telling me the campus was closed for the day. 

What? I would get a real life snow day? I packed up all my things and returned home for a whole day of scrapbooking and fun. (And it turned into two days of scrapbooking and fun, because the campus closed again the next day.) But as fun as it was, even that was cut short by the adulthood responsibilities of shoveling and treating the sidewalks. 

Ryan and I enjoyed a snow day together about four years ago in the middle of a Polar Vortex. Our county fell under a travel restriction, and we couldn't get to work. We made snow ice cream, built a snowman, watched movies for hours, and had a campout on the living room floor.

I may be almost 40, but I'm still of the persuasion that snow days should pop up now and then, and they should get to be fun. They should be true holidays filled with rest and enjoyment, just like the snow days of our childhood.

But I'm okay if we don't repeat that big, bad blizzard. I like to know I can get out to have some of my fun! Or at least some coffee.