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And what of a snow day

Posted By Scott Warnock On In virtual children by Scott Warnock | 14 Comments

The reality is that I did not walk seven miles uphill both ways to school in three feet of snow, even in June. Neither did you. But things were different when we were little, weren’t they, you 30- and 40- and 50-somethings? Things were certainly different when it snowed.

Maybe your kids are more ambitious than mine, but snow days don’t seem to be what they once were. When we were little and we had a snow day — the closing number I still remember: 579 — we would go out in the snow and never come back. No laying around watching Netflix or playing Atari. I told my middle son these things as he sat around, hot chocolate in hand, on a snowy day.

I told him how we would assemble at the top of Coleman Road, a ragged pack of us, waiting for cars to bumper ride. The cars would slowly come around the corner – nothing was ever plowed that well – and the kids would scramble behind it, grab the bumper, and take a trip. Nice teenagers would slow down, make sure we were all hooked on, and give us a ride. Mean ones would do the same, but once we grabbed on, they would speed and swerve down the street, leaving us strewn about.

I told him about snowballs. Four of us were walking down the street when some little kid standing on his porch taunted us. That’s what little kids did back then. We fired on him. He was pinned on the porch, afraid to open the door in case a snowball made its way in. We cackled as the little punk cowered. But out of the house burst the brother. About five years older than us. Unbuttoned flannel shirt with no t-shirt underneath. Scraggly hair. Blue jeans. No shoes. Probably getting stoned to Rush in the basement. This maniac charged after us. We ran, but one of us was too slow. The maniac caught him. All we could do was watch as he got kicked, rolling down the street. He was smart, though, and he balled up in his thick snowsuit. We thought of intervening but let it play itself out. Our pal eventually got up, brushed himself off, and cursed us out for abandoning him. Off we went.

I told him about my neighbor’s dad, who was never out with the kids otherwise, like today’s dads are, outside playing with people a quarter their age all the time. But he was out there this one snow day. Big old dude. I crept around a car and there he was, in the alley between the car and house. He turned and unloaded on me. Splat! Crushed me right in the face. I walked home, cheeks ice-burning red, all deflated and sullen. No one cared. No one came to my rescue. No one got sued.

I told him about throwing snowballs at cars, and how weird it is that I have not had my car struck by a snowball in at least a decade. I remember us, though, crouched behind some cover by a road. We would pelt cars as they went by. The highlight would be when some nut would whip has car around and leap out and come after us. Then the chase was on. Once, I told him, one of us had to go to the bathroom. Bad. Number two. We didn’t want to go home. We told him just to go there in the woods. He finally agreed — he had to– but he told us to stop hitting cars for a few minutes. We said we’d stop. But we lied. We kept up the pelting, and of course, one car whipped around and put its headlights on us. We had to make our dash through the woods. What did that driver think as  he saw in the midst of those scurrying forms the moon of a crying, snowpants-less kid?

I told him about snow football. We played for hours, visions of our NFL heroes in our heads. Thank god there was no video, because we felt so fast, so tough, tromping through the snow until a pile of kids piled on us and brought us down. Why see that it was so much less than that?

I told him about any excuse for a battle. We would use the massive piles on the side of the driveway as forts. Once Pete kicked Blair in the head by accident, leaving a scar that’s there to this day. Blair had to lie on the vinyl floor in our laundry room for a long time waiting for his annoyed parents to finish dinner and take him to the hospital. He had his hands crossed, stoic, trying to ignore the open gash in his forehead.

It was a bunch of stuff to do, I told him. We all survived. We’d leave in the morning. I don’t remember lunches. I don’t remember warmth. I remember trudging through the icy streets in the dark with my jeans frozen into hoops that swiveled on my skinny legs. Fingers numbed into claws. Frozen toes. It was magnificent.

I emailed Blair and Pete the other day after we got some snow: “Ah, if only we still lived near each other. What a glorious day it would be.”

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Scott Warnock [4]

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.
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