When I was little, before I went to school, I did like to go out and play in the snow. Well, I didn’t love it but liked to go out with my dog for a few minutes. We were usually out there less time than it took mom to get all the layers of clothes and the snow suit on me. But, we’d go out so he could do his business and I could get wet all over from falling down in the snow suit.
Those little snow suits I had to wear were a lot like the space suits the astronauts wear, but bulkier. At least they can move their arms in theirs. My snow suit was so full of padding that I couldn’t move my arms. So going out in the snow was not a lot of fun.
When I was in school, snow took on another emotion for all the kids I knew. There was a little gully behind our house and the highway over it was high enough that we could sled. It was the only place around town that we could use. All the kids came down to my house to slide down the embankment from the highway.
So the kids in town really enjoyed it. I would bundle up and go out and maybe slide down on the sled a couple of times and then I was ready to get back in the house where it was warm. Even though most of the kids in school loved snow I still was not crazy about it.
The country kids loved a big snow because they were out of school until they decided that it was safe to take the buses out to bring them to school. But, the town kids in Mullinville in the 50’s and 60’s had to go to school no matter what. I can only remember a couple of snow days and that was during a blizzard when the snow was really deep. But we were back in school a week before the country kids were brought back to school.
I hated it when country kids had a snow day and the town kids had to go to school so they could count it as a school day. I always thought the country kids should have to go to school and make up those days at the end of the school year and the town kids should have had those days off. But it didn’t work that way.
When I started working it was not any better and I still hated snow and getting out in it. Since we live 4 miles north of the city limits and at the top of a hill the trip into work and back home was always a nerve racking drive. The hill I had to go up to get home is steep and I always had the fear of sliding back down when I was heading home.
Sometimes I would drive up Plum Street about a mile to the east of Monroe. It did not have the hill to get up. It was a gentle slope. I would have to drive an extra mile north on Plum and then cross over to Monroe. Then back down to our house.
When I was working in town in a large salon I would struggle to get to town on a snowy day and 99% of the time all the women that lived in town would cancel their appointments. So I would get back in the car and struggle to get home.
I thought when I opened my shop at home that I would have a snow day now and then and the women wouldn’t make the drive out here to get their hair done. But my husband always cleared off the driveway just in case. It was just like being the town kid in school and they would come out to get their hair done no matter what the weather. So, I rarely had snow days when I was working at home either.
There were a few times when we had 15+ inches in a storm that I would call them and tell them to stay home because the driveway was too deep and the hill on Monroe would be treacherous. I think they would have tried if I hadn’t called.
When I was driving residents to the doctor in the Honda accord, a snow day was still a rare day. That little Honda could get around in anything. Even the day when we had 19 inches by mid afternoon, it was still getting them to the doctor and back home.
Now that we are retired, if the roads aren’t clear we don’t get out and go anywhere. We have both had our fill of driving in the snow, and we usually don’t need anything that we have to get out for. I am content to just stay in the house and try to ignore the hated white blanket that is covering our yard.
So not much has changed for me from when I was 2 years old until now at 73. I still hate snow and don’t want to be out in it. At least now I don’t have to get dressed up in a snow suit and go out like I had to do when I went out with my dog.
Snow is a hate or love situation for all of us, but most people don’t have the level of hate for it I do. Now I can just stay inside when there is snow and grumble that I can’t get out and about. To contact Sandy: [email protected]
