A Snow Day Was A Special Thing for Baby Boomer Kids

Growing up in Chicago as a boomer kid in the early 70’s was a wonderful thing. Back then, Chicago was a great city. As kids we watched the Ray Rayner Show, Bozo’s Circus (I still use the phrase; “photogeraphic pimento“), and the Cubs were on WGN seemingly every afternoon in the summer. While I did spend some time living in downtown proper when I was very young, it’s the memories of suburbia that I fondly recall every time it snows. Today’s Boomer Memories relives the early days of the classic snow day.

Waiting For a Snow Day The Old Fashioned Way

Being a northern city, a good snow day could be hard to come by. That 1/2-inch covering of white stuff that might shut down a city like Dallas didn’t even get the snow plow drivers out of bed in Chicago. They’d salt the freeways of course, but for side streets and neighborhoods, you relied on the snow tires you installed, and a healthy dose of common sense…both glaringly absent here in the south.

The buildup to a good snow day was almost like Christmas, as you would begin to feel the excitement the day before. Weather reports would break in frequently on one of the few TV channels you had. Your parents might talk in hushed tones, making provisions for the possibility of handling the kids if there was no school. You’d stick your head outside frequently to see how much snow was coming down, assuming it had already started.

The Early Morning Vigil

On those potential snow day mornings, even waking up was different. You’d start to regain your morning consciousness, dreading the prospect of another day of school. Your mind would calculate that it was still a weekday, and as you began to drag yourself out of bed it hit you….a possible snow day!

If you were a younger kid, you raced to the nearest TV. Mom always had a little TV in the kitchen, so I would head there immediately. The best feeling in the world was grabbing a bowl of sugary cereal and watching the news, which held zero value to you 99% of the time, but now was the only thing that stood between you and a snow day.

If you were a teen, you might play it cool and lounge around your room listening to the radio, hoping for that glorious announcement. If you felt like staying in bed, this was the way to go, but otherwise you wanted to be where the action (and food) were.

Snow Day Announcements

In the early 70’s, you didn’t have internet, phone trees, apps, and other niceties to see if schools were closed. You had to watch the TV and/or listen while they read the status of each county’s directive. Today, Illinois has 102 counties…and I imagine that number has not changed much since then. We lived in Cook County, so we were on the alert to hear them state the disposition of school that day for each county.

Your biggest headache as a hopeful, cereal-eating kid was tuning in late…say, after they announced DeKalb county. Now you were forced to the edge of your seat while you wait through the entire alphabetical list and two commercial breaks to come back around to the “C’s” to learn your fate. Uggh!!

Of course when those 9 magic words were spoken, “Schools in Cook County are closed for the day“, bedlam broke out in the house. You immediately went for a second bowl of cereal to fuel up for what was sure to be a day of building snow forts and snowmen outside. If you were lucky, you might have a way to get to a hill for some sledding.

By lunch time you had burned off that cereal and were freezing and starving. Mom always had a big pot of soup, chili, goulash….something warm and delicious on the stove. An acceptable alternative were gooey grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. While you ate, your scarves and mittens tumbled in the dryer, getting ready for round two.

A Knife In The Heart

The opposite of a snow day was of course, “Cook County schools are open and will begin at the normal time“. Even as a kid, you were pretty savvy as to how much snow was going to trigger a snow day, so you didn’t get your hopes up too high for a few flurries. Still, we weren’t miniature meteorologists either, and sometimes you really got your hopes up, only to be stabbed in the heart by a thoughtless news anchor.

The middle ground, the sister kiss if you will…to borrow a hockey term, was the delayed opening. You didn’t have to go to school right away, but you still had to go. Fortunately, the mood at school was carnivalesque, and snow balls abounded on the playground. Sometimes a teacher who lived in another county couldn’t make it in because her kid got to stay home, so you might get a substitute teacher as well.

The Adult Snow Day

A snow day in the modern era, as an adult, is a rare occurrence. Still, in certain scenarios, that child-like excitement can return. For me, as a resident in the south…sufficient snow (or often ice) to cause a snow day is a once-a-year occurrence…maybe. If you are a remote worker…it means practically nothing anyway. Still, as the snow accumulates….even just the threat of snow, the talking heads on the local news try to prepare you for Snowmageddon, an Arctic Blast, or a Polar Vortex. Grocery stores and gas stations are full, and the city is emailing you to advise that the library is closing early and trash pickup will be skipped.

Seeing just an inch or two on the ground brings back those childhood memories. While I know northern residents everywhere are laughing at the pathetic southerners floundering in an inch of snow, remember that what comes around goes around. Come August when it’s 90-degrees and ya’ll are passing out on the street, we’ll be enjoying that “cold front” that brought us down below 100.