Town Crier: Snow Day!

The Town Crier thought it pretty funny last week when, after almost three weeks of Christmas break and finally showing up to school on a Wednesday so they would have only a three-day work week (just like the ones those French Labor Union guys get), when word came we might get some snow on Thursday. The chant spread across the county from playground to playground and table to table through the school cafeteria: “Snow Day!”

You just had a huge break. Yeah, but this is a Snow Day! Nothing like it. You can’t say anything negative about a snow day because it is, literally, a gift from heaven.

Those of us who have lived around here for more than just a few winters know how often the weather guys get it wrong. One of my high school buddies, George Mathews, became a weatherman. He dad was Dr. Mathews the veterinarian in town years ago and his uncle is the noted surgeon Dr. Paul Bradley of Bradley Wellness Center fame (and also a lot of local appendectomy scars). George chased tornados in college (luckily he never caught one) and then got a job as the weekend weatherman on Channel 9 in Chattanooga. He told me that this area is one of the most challenging in the country because of the location between the cold north and hot south and the influence of the mountains on the local climate and of the Gulf of Mexico vs. the prevalent jet stream winds from the northwest. Anyway, the point is, the weathermen around here have got their work cut out for them.

After about a year or so of TV weather he went to work for the National Weather Service. I figured then I could get the inside scoop on the weather so I’d call him up and ask him if it was going to rain tomorrow. He’d tell me he needed to check his charts and radar maps and satellite photos and he’d get back to me. While I was waiting I’d call my grandfather and if his corns were hurting it meant rain was coming. Well, that’s government work vs. private enterprise for you, I guess.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday the kids are really starting to pay attention to the snow news on TV and radio. I told my kids that even if it snowed a little the schools might close because it’s been so freezing cold around here lately that the ground is below 32 degrees and wouldn’t melt any snow. Sure enough, Thursday they said the snow is coming and to get your kids by noon sharp on Thursday or they would be given an energy drink and that would show you. My wife left the house as the first white snow dots came down. They were so small I think the technical name for them is “flakelettes.” Trained by my mother over years of snow predictions here in the Dalton area, I called out to my wife “… and pick up bread and milk while you’re out.” She got the kids, swung by the Green Spot, saw about 20 of our friends picking up bread and milk, and then picked up some DVDs at the library before she got home about 2 o’clock.

The snow was starting to collect on the ground at this point and I had heard that Atlanta was expecting up to an inch of snow, so I was guessing, not being old enough to have corns of my own, that we could get up to 3 inches. The kids, out of school, in front of the fire, already planning Olympic speed sled runs down the driveway, were already asking me if school would be canceled tomorrow as well. Snow. It’s a kids’ version of a “get out of jail free” card.

If you think back to when you were a kid, you’ll remember that it just wasn’t the getting out of school for snow alone that was what makes a snow day so special, it’s the IDEA of the snow day. It’s nature itself conspiring with the children to get them out of something they HAVE to do. It’s the kids and the sky vs. the grownup world and winning, at least for a day. Why do kids like superheroes like Superman or Spider-Man so much? Because they have very little power, but Superheroes have Super Powers! They can do what they want when they want. Truly that’s a fantasy and life goal for every kid who has had to sit still during a distant relative’s wedding or a lecture on long division. I remember being powerless to make the teachers stop giving me homework and declaring, like Scarlett O’Hara out in that radish patch swearing she’ll never be hungry again, that as soon as I got to be a grownup I would never do homework again!

Just as a footnote, I’d like to point out that I was up until 1 a.m. last night at the kitchen table putting finishing touches on a project due this afternoon.

I vividly recall waking up early on a school day morning, in a strange gray light and hearing the radio tuned to WBLJ. It would slowly dawn on me that dad had tuned in to check… wait for it… school closings! Before I hear “Brookwood” or “City Park” called out, I was up and looking out the window at a thick blanket of white that miraculously changed the bland winter world of North Georgia in February into a fantasy world fit for an Arctic explorer. Suddenly, just by the knowledge that there would be no school, I was transformed from a shuffling public school zombie, just trying to get through that endless Sahara-like expanse of time between Christmas holiday and spring break, into an energy-infused, excited ball of snow-powered superhero! The “Amazing Snow Man,” able to smash anything that needs smashing with one mighty shot of a snowball, able to create snow angels with a single fall backward, able to sled faster than a speeding bullet down the hill, as soon as I dragged the sled out from under the house where it sat forgotten for the last two or three snow-free years.

With snow such a rarity around here, we don’t take it for granted like they do in Michigan or the Dakotas. We relish each step in a field where no one has been before us. We are always surprised by the strange silence of a world covered in soft padding. We notice bird prints on the ground and think it a high work of art. Here it’s a vacation where the exotic and strange land came to us, not where we had to get on a jet and travel for a day to get somewhere so magic and different. And for me, even if it was a late snow in March, there would be echoes of Christmas feelings throughout the day. Snow makes canned soup delicious. Snow turns warm water into a torture device when you put cold, wet hands under the faucet. Snow makes life an adventure where fun and adventure walk hand in hand with danger. Where, if not for the extra milk and bread, survival itself could be at stake.

The snow day last week had very little snow but the effect on the kids was just as liberating as if it had been 2 feet deep. My kids tromped through the woods. The little girls next door came to see what we were up to and to mooch hot chocolate. The neighbor with the new job was out trying to scrape a clear path on the driveway so he could make a good impression on the boss. My wife got a day at home to study for a test she needed to take on Saturday. Everybody else I know was trying to get their cars towed out of the ditch from the night before. There were a lot of cars parked at the bottom of hills on Thursday night. I built a fire and declared myself free of any homework for the next 24 hours. The white magic had come and liberated me once again.

There’s no day like a snow day!

Mark Hannah, a Dalton native, works in film and video production.

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