A Cold Day in Heaven

As I watched the snow pile up outside my hotel room window last week during the back to back blizzards attacking Washington DC, I couldn’t help but wish my kids were there with me. We’ve not had a big snow like that in their lifetime, and the few inches we usually get in Tennessee barely reach the top of the grass. A sled run quickly turns muddy, turning the beauty of the winter landscape into a dirty, sloppy mess.


Almost every day throughout the winter, my youngest daughter Taylor excitedly asks if it is going to snow. I remember that feeling well. I asked the same question of my parents each cold, frosty night from January thru March. I answer her much like my father answered me, with little faith in the magic of the clouds and the power of a thousand kids praying for a snow day. It was the only time I didn’t really believe my Dad was going to be right, and I’m sure Taylor doesn’t believe me either (although she feels that way on many more subjects than I ever did with my parents). I fell asleep with the promise of snow in my dreams, believing that when I awoke the next morning, there would be a blanket of white outside my window.


As far as kids are concerned, snow days are like a surprise late Christmas gift from God. Although they are usually bored and whiny by 11am, the promise of a little extra sleep and a day at home is overpowering. I never understood why parents didn’t get as excited over schools closing for snow as kids did…until I was a parent. That’s when I learned that it’s very rare to get a “snow day” from work (for some reason, if you get paid, they expect you to be there). Also, someone has to deal with the kids for the day.


When the home routine is broken, tension levels rise. Connie is used to having the day all to herself. She gets the kids off to school, me off to work; she sips some coffee, answers some email, watches a little of the Today show. Then she works…at her pace, without interruption.


Snow days ruin her plans. Not that she hates having the kids or me around, but we are kind of annoying. She doesn’t get a lot done on snow days because someone is always yelling. Either they are yelling at each other over some perceived injustice, or they are yelling for Mom to get something, fix something, look at something or answer something that they should already know the answer to.


Connie tries very hard to get them out of the house early and often, but that requires a considerable amount of work. Gathering coats, gloves, boots, sleds, etc., takes a lot of effort, and although the kids can’t wait to get out there and play, they don’t seem to have the skill set to prepare for it without extensive help.


I don’t know about most people, but we don’t think about snow gear until there is snow on the ground and we can’t get our car out of the drive. That means that the boots that fit last year are too tight now, and the waterproof gloves have mysteriously disappeared. All that is left in the “winter clothing drawer” are some mismatched cotton mittens and a toddler snow suit that was outgrown eight years ago.


Sleds are kept in our outside storage, usually covered up by coolers, camping supplies, empty bags of peat moss and a million microscopic cobwebs. Since no one else will venture into the back of our storage building, I somehow find myself crawling awkwardly over my lawnmower, arms outstretched while I get pummeled by falling rakes and shovels. When I finally stagger outside, sleds in tow, the kids know better than to say “what took you so long?”


Throughout the summer months we often complain about our back yard. Too steep for any game play (if you start running at the top, it’s hard to stop running until you hit the fence at the bottom of the hill), we usually go to one of our local parks to play. Those same features, however, make it a pretty great yard for sledding. There are a few trees to dodge if you go off course, but the central strip is just right to build up some decent speed. Although the fence can seem to be approaching pretty fast, we’ve learned exactly when and where to roll off the sled to avoid any ugly accidents.


For all the trouble it takes to get the mass of snow gear together, you’d think that they would stay out most of the day, but that would be far too easy. Usually after no more than an hour, they come back in, muddy and wet, dripping and tracking all over the floor, demanding hot chocolate and food. Soon they are in pajamas, covered up by soft blankets, watching the Disney Channel and wondering if they will have school the next day. It’s barely noon.


It’s great to be a kid.


It takes me back to the winter of 1977. We had snow, then some more snow, topped off by even more snow. I think I was out of school for the entire month of January. It was great...until we had to go to school every Saturday in May and for half of June to make up all the time we missed. You don’t think about those things at the time though. Kid’s minds don’t deal in consequences.


Unlike my current yard, our yard growing up was flat. The alley way behind us however, had a slight slope, and after a few trucks had tamped down the snow, it made for a pretty good run. Dad built a sled for us, welding the rails and cross bars, and topped it off with a piece of plywood. I don’t know how fast we went, but in my mind, it was a rocket.


A friend of Dad’s came with a tractor and scraped our driveway, creating a huge pile of snow in the corner of our yard. With a small shovel and hours of determination, we made a snow cave; big enough for several of us to get inside and contemplate how amazingly cool it was that we had our own snow cave. As I recall, that cave lasted until mid-June.


The timing of that school free month was perfect, at least for me, because I got to stay up late for the eight nights of the television miniseries Roots. It was a turning point for me, as my 13 year old eyes saw something different than reruns of The Brady Bunch and Gilligan’s Island. Obviously I was aware of slavery and had studied and been tested in very general terms in Social Studies class, but I did not understand it on a personal level. Roots changed that. I will never forget experiencing the saga of Kunta Kinte, Chicken George, Kizzy and Fiddler. American History changed for me that month.


Another highlight of winter when I was a kid was snow-cream. It was plentiful and cheap, so we ate it until our stomach hurt and our internal body temperature dropped by ten degrees. The next day, we’d do the same thing again. Today, we’re a little afraid of eating snow out of fear of what might be in the atmosphere, particularly where I live. A few bowls of Oak Ridge snow-cream and you might start to glow.


As good as my memories are from my own childhood snow days, and despite my griping over the mud and the gear and the cobweb covered sleds, I have to admit that I just might be enjoying these weather related closings a little bit more. Nothing in my memory is quite as great as the sight of my own children having a good time. Even at their most irritating and selfish (and let’s face it, kids are really good at both of those things), they are my kids. Seeing them happy is the best memory of all.