Snow Day!!!

February 7, 2014

Carolyn J. Rose

Schools closed two hours early yesterday here in Vancouver, Washington. Students and teachers were urged to get home quickly and safely. I didn’t need any prodding and was grateful that my commute was a mere three miles, very little of it uphill. There were few cars on the road and no one honked at me to move faster than what I considered to be a safe speed.

The snow piled up quickly and the bulletin soon went out—no school on Friday. Even though a school cancellation means no pay for a substitute teacher, I felt a jolt of joy, that sense of having received a gift, getting a “free” day when I hadn’t expected one.

In the Catskill Mountains where I grew up, the five inches that fell here might not have been enough to call off school. The snow days I recall were due to more accumulation of heavy snow, or freezing rain, or the dire threat of both. There were many snowy mornings when we hovered close to the battered radio in the kitchen, waiting for the announcer to repeat the closings, hoping to hear Onteora included on the list, certain there had to be a mistake if it wasn’t.

My mother, a school nurse, would cheer along with us when a snow day was called. For her, though, it was hardly a “free” day, not with three kids wanting lunch, tracking in snow, leaving wet clothing in heaps, and abandoning dirty dishes everywhere. And my father, who ran a small construction company, would go to work as usual—after plowing his way to the county road and clearing the lanes to relatives’ houses.

There won’t be anyone plowing our street—city crews manage the main roads, but ours is hardly that. So I may have a “free” day, but my choices of how to spend it will be limited by how much traction my tires can get.

The Last Day of School

The Last Day of School

Carolyn J. Rose

 

 Schools Out--Muppets and Alice Cooper  

The last day of high school.

  

The seniors have already graduated and gone and many of the others took their finals in advance and headed off to summer jobs and family vacations or long days of just hanging out.

The halls aren’t crammed between classes.

The classrooms echo with farewells and promises.

Even the sunlight through the trees seems to have a different shade and slant.

Walking to the office to turn in my substitute keys, I cast my mind back to the June days of my teen years when I would count down the hours, the minutes, and even the seconds.

My thoughts then would be on the rising level of the water in the pool we scrubbed and whitewashed on Memorial Day. Fed by a spring now dry, it seemed to take forever to fill. And it was cold—muscle-numbing, breath-catching, toe-curling cold. But it represented summer—afternoons of sunbathing, listening to the static-ridden signal of WMGM from New York City for the hits of the season, and wondering who might come down the road and dive in.

As school days dwindled down to the final one, moods shifted. Those we now refer to as slackers did less and became more disdainful of the educational process. Those hoping for college scholarships hunched over their notebooks and drilled with their vocabulary cards. Those with confidence joked. Those freaked out about finals joked more. Everyone talked about summer plans and speculated about what teachers would do after the final bell.

Everyone was aware that all that was familiar and mundane would be behind us in a few days. When we returned in the fall, there would be a sense of strangeness. There would be harder subjects to tackle and perhaps a few new teachers or new classmates. We would find seats in classrooms we may never have entered before, or get involved in new activities with new friends.

And, until tedium set in again, we would be energized and somehow renewed.