Of all the heart-breaking endings that this pandemic has wreaked upon us, add one more — the probable death of the snow day.
Admit it, one of your best childhood memories is waking up on a cold winter morning to find that the world outside the window has been blanketed by snow, and sitting in the kitchen listening to the radio atop the fridge as the man reads off a list of school closings. And then, when you hear your school’s name, the squeals of joy up and down the block as you and all your friends urge Mom to hurry up with breakfast so you can tumble out the door to play the day away.
You slip the Wonder Bread bags over your double-socked feet and shove them into your galoshes, zip up your snowsuit — then unzip it to go to the bathroom — and zip it again before tugging on your mittens and stocking cap.
And then — oh joy oh joy oh joy — you’re outside in the red-cheeked, wet-nosed, finger-tingling street with all the kids on the block to debate whether you should start the day with a snow-fort, a snow-man, or a snowball fight. Or — if the snowplow has left mounds big enough — maybe even an igloo.
Oh joy oh joy oh joy, it’s a snow day! And you know you’ll treasure the memory for the rest of your life, far longer than anything else that might have happened in school on this or any other day.
But this pandemic winter, with remote learning the rule rather than the exception all across America, is there any chance that kids will ever see another snow day during this or any other winter? A recent survey of school officials revealed that 39 percent of schools had already given up snow days for good, and another 32 percent were considering doing so. They simply aren’t necessary any more — at least not from a logistical standpoint.
But I would argue that snow days are necessary from a much deeper standpoint, that snow days are an essential element of a childhood well-and-fully lived, that any child forced to endure a childhood devoid of even one snow day is a child neglected and abused. (Yeah, I’m talking to you, Florida.)
All throughout my childhood, snow day was celebrated with a Kerth-family holiday of our own invention — Mom made date-and-nut bread, with a loaf for every member of the family, or maybe even two. We loved the tradition so much, we talked Mom into making date-and-nut bread not just on school-closing days, but also on the first snowy winter day of the year.
Of course, what actually constituted the first snow was a matter of spirited debate. We kids, of course, argued that the first wayward October snowflake counted, but not Mom. She insisted that the ground had to be covered with white — and not just a dusting on the tops of the grass in the yard, but the sidewalks and streets, too. So this meant at least a half-inch or so, and it had to stick around throughout the day.
Naturally, that wouldn’t be enough to cancel classes, so we would head out to school in the morning, knowing that we would come home in the afternoon to a house filled with the warm, sweet smell of fresh-baked date-and-nut bread, still warm from the oven, melting that pat of butter on the top until it ran all over your fingers if you didn’t eat it fast enough.
Even the anticipation of that tradition was delicious. For months beginning in September, we would remind Mom that winter was coming, and that she should make sure that she had walnuts and dates on hand, as well as all the other ingredients. Mom would save tin cans after the peas or corn came out of them, because that too was a vital part of the process.
When the big day came, she lined the cans with wax paper and poured in the batter, no more than two-thirds full, so the loaf could rise to the top as it baked. She left just enough wax paper at the top so you could crimp it shut and tug the whole loaf out of the can in one piece, then cut it into slices with a thin wax-paper rind to peel off before eating.
Our first-snow ritual is one of my fondest childhood memories, one that I was sure to continue when I grew up and had kids of my own.
And a stay-home-from-school snow day was best of all, even if your mom didn’t make date-and-nut bread for you.
So come on, America, and join me in urging schools to honor Snow Day as a valued American tradition. It will be a traveling holiday, happening at different times all across the land. Let each community decide the rules — maybe the first six-inch snowfall in Chicago, but only an inch in Atlanta—and when it happens, call off the remote learning for that day and urge the kids to tumble out the door to build forts, snowmen and memories.
Sorry, kids in Florida, you’re on your own. If your parents really loved you, they’d move the family to Chicago.
Author, musician and storyteller TR Kerth is a retired teacher who has lived in Sun City Huntley since 2003. Contact him at trkerth@yahoo.com. Can’t wait for your next visit to Planet Kerth? Then get TR’s book, “Revenge of the Sardines,” available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online book distributors.
