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Is There Anything Quite Like a Snow Day?
As a kid growing up in New England snow days were akin to Christmas Eve. You went to bed with the anticipation that the next morning would bring something new, something exciting, something rare.
My childhood bedroom was at the front of the house with windows facing the street. On snowy nights I’d creep out of bed, sometimes at two or three in the morning, and press my face against the window to watch the snow fall. The glow of the streetlights would reflect off the white on the ground and turn the entire street into some sort of surreal yellowish snow globe. The silence would be all-enveloping, that special sort of silence that only exists when it snows.
I’d set my alarm early, like early-early. The morning radio programs usually started at five, and they’d begin first thing with the list of closures or delays. My radio alarm clock was the most adult thing I owned and on these mornings, with the promise of a snow day hanging heavy in the air, it was also the most important thing I owned.
I lived in a town called Plainville and so I had to sit for agonizing hours (that were more likely seconds or minutes) as the DJ read through the list alphabetically. “Avon Public Schools, 2 hour-delay. Berlin Public Schools, cancelled. Bloomfield Public Schools, 2-hour delay.”
