TWO-HOUR DISMAY
every child left behind.
Can someone, anyone in western Pennsylvania, for
the love of God and all the memories of my lost childhood, when snow was snow
and ice was ice and superintendents and meteorologists were not near-sighted,
mother-clucking Chicken Littles, why the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and a whole
hell of a lot of other schools in the county, have a two-hour delay? The roads
are bone-dry. The temperature is 25 degrees. The wind is blowing and gusting
in occasional huffs and puffs, but not enough to be felt even once on a
three-mile drive in my high-profile vehicle. I saw a couple of toppled trash
cans. Two plastic shopping bags fluttered across my path. When I got back to
my house, I think I heard a storm window rattle.
At the risk of sounding like some crotchety old fart, bent back arched over his rhetorical cane, grumbling about how he used to walk to school, uphill both ways, in hip-deep snow with wild dogs snapping at his heels...
...when I was a kid, a two-hour delay was a rare and precious commodity, something not to be taken and surely not to be given lightly. When you got one -- and don't even talk to me about days off; for those, you had to have the promise of six inches or more and already be well on your way -- you felt like you'd just won the lottery. Or lost your virginity. Or both. You had to have snow -- a lot of it -- or accumulating ice or the nearby detonation of a thermonuclear device. You needed a hell of a lot more than a downed power line, a couple of scattered tree branches, and the increasingly grating notion that our delicate children must be protected from any weather you would not find on a South Florida beach.
At the risk of sounding like some crotchety old fart, bent back arched over his rhetorical cane, grumbling about how he used to walk to school, uphill both ways, in hip-deep snow with wild dogs snapping at his heels...
...when I was a kid, a two-hour delay was a rare and precious commodity, something not to be taken and surely not to be given lightly. When you got one -- and don't even talk to me about days off; for those, you had to have the promise of six inches or more and already be well on your way -- you felt like you'd just won the lottery. Or lost your virginity. Or both. You had to have snow -- a lot of it -- or accumulating ice or the nearby detonation of a thermonuclear device. You needed a hell of a lot more than a downed power line, a couple of scattered tree branches, and the increasingly grating notion that our delicate children must be protected from any weather you would not find on a South Florida beach.
Posted: Wed - January 30, 2008 at 08:15 AM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:51 PM
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Published On: Jan 16, 2009 04:51 PM