The Blizzard of 2016
We always hoped snow days landed on a school day.
Our folks always hoped snow days landed on a day they wouldn't lose any pay staying home to watch us. Or in Florence's case, lose her rare time alone or her mercurial sanity.
But we didn't care, this ragtag bunch of kids living in the Quartchyard - religious, not religious didn't matter. Snow days meant liberation from strict rules of where we could or could not run, touch, walk, and stomp, or how loud or not loud we could shout, woop, squeal, scream and laugh.
All year round we carefully didn't touch anything like the grass or the bushes or the tree trunks. This was nature and it was proof that you didn't need to be rich to have nice stuff. Just like Cindy's mother's couch which was encased in plastic, those natures thingies were meant to be looked at but never touched.
But the minute that snow hit the grass of the Quartchyard we were running, stomping, wooping laughing screaming not just on the stone walkway, but EVERYWHERE.
There were no fancy outdoors clothes in those days. There was wool. In layers. And when those layers and layers got wet we got cold.
En masse, all of us would rush into one of the buildings ringing the Quartchyard and with more screaming and squealing and stomping and wooping, we would throw our wet wool mittens and hats and scarves onto the big iron radiator spitting out steam heat.
The smell of wet wool on those radiators was the smell of happy as we hopped up and down hoping things would dry as quickly as possible so we could get outside and run rampant all over again.
Snow days are different today. There is no running and jumping and squealing and wool. Instead, it is, from a safe distance, watching and worrying that the oil tanker stuck in a snow drift won't be able to get his truck out and away from our home before it blows up.
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