Memories of snow days of old…

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Fyrefox

Well-known Member
When I was a kid, a snow day meant no school, and opportunities for enterprising youngsters to go out and shovel snow in the neighborhood in exchange for some bucks! Why, I’d grab my snow shovel on such occasions, go out, shovel for the older neighbors, and at the end of the day, have maybe seven or eight dollars in my hot little hands. That was a small fortune for kids back then! Why, you could buy stuff with that!

Have fun finding kids willing to do that today; I wish that I could find some! With not many kids willing to do physical labor for compensation, you’ll probably have to do snow removal yourself, or hire a professional to do it.

How did you spend your snow days when in school? ❄️☃️
 

Oh, thank you for some nice long-ago memories!!!

We weren't enterprising, though, and neighbors generally took care of their own stuff anyway, so snow days were opportunities for some extra sleep and t.v.

When my much-older brothers were still at home and in high schools, we'd all cluster around the radio early in the mornings waiting to see if they mentioned our school. We were happy if the announcer said "CLOSED!"
It wasn't anything spectacular, just nice little memories of when we were still all together.
 

Like Janice said, we'd hang over the radio listening to the school closing list, waiting to hear our school mentioned. Mom would be muttering, "Oh, please, noooooo!", knowing she had a day ahead of her of stuffing kids into snowsuits and then getting them out again, over and over. No sooner would one kid be out the door before another one would be in whining, "I gotta go to the bafroom!"
 
When we were little, it was a day of sledding with plenty of wet boots and mittens over the register to dry.

The smell of American goulash and fresh brownies or cookies when we burst through the kitchen door.

Drawing faces in the steam-covered windows.

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I recall getting the occasional snow day as a kid in Wisconsin. My mother would encourage us to go out and play. There were only 3 of us at that time, but still more than a mother would want in the house when she was expecting some peace and quiet, which was fine with us. Off to build snow forts, or sleding, or snowball fights. Mike
 
I don’t remember school ever being closed when I was a pupil.
Although I started school in the famous 62/3 Winter so it might have been.
i do remember my University in one of the highest parts of Cardiff being cut off to outside world in early 1978.
It was the day of the Wales Scotland rugby match and it started snowing just after the game finished.Not much when I left the centre of Cardiff but a raging blizzard and knee deep snow on higher ground.
Next morning the snow was more than waist deep and drifting ensured both entrances to campus were
cut off...we got a week off lectures and eventually snow ploughs dug the entrances out..but it was an interesting week on a residential campus with several hundred students needing to be fed...
And I had left a window slightly open.. on Saturday evening my room had snow
on the inside window sill.
 
I have always lived in the North Eastern area of the state of Maryland. This meant we were usually on the line of either getting hit hard with a big snow storm or missing out or getting a big mess of mixed precipitation. I do recall those larger storms getting off of school which meant for me sled riding, snowball fights, and even playing touch football with the boys in the snow. Yes I was somewhat of a tomboy. I also think the boys enjoyed me playing touch football as well. 🤣
 
Sled riding in West Virginia? Almost heaven. My next door neighbor had a hill as a front yard that was probably about fifty yards down. That was for the little kids, as we got to be teenagers we would go to one of the paved roads that went straight up the side of a hill and became a sheet of ice for some real speed sledding.
We would sled all day until the fathers started coming home from work -- they wern't best pleased if we had thrown buckets of water on the pavement to keep it icy.
 
Della said:
Sled riding in West Virginia? Almost heaven. My next door neighbor had a hill as a front yard that was probably about fifty yards down. That was for the little kids, as we got to be teenagers we would go to one of the paved roads that went straight up the side of a hill and became a sheet of ice for some real speed sledding.
We would sled all day until the fathers started coming home from work -- they weren't best pleased if we had thrown buckets of water on the pavement to keep it icy.
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I remember only one or two snow days off school .... of course now they close for a dusting it seems
we lived back off the main roads but always built forts or snow people ... mom hated that as it melted we would have clumps of areas the snow stayed longer as we had piled up for the fort etc
 
I was 18 years old when I finally got to see my first real snowstorm in person.
Was attending a Tech School in Denver and still had my Hawaii driver's license.

It snowed enough to cover the roads and I wasn't quite sure if I could handle it.
Took my old beat-up Dodge truck to a large empty parking lot and started to do slides
to learn how to recover from them.

Soon a police car pulled up and motioned for me to stop.
I explained why I was doing those crazy slides and showed the officer my license.
He smiled and said, 'slide over, I'll give you some tips'.
He took the wheel of my truck and made some scary slides explaining why he was steering a certain way
to recover.

I thanked them and never forgot how they took the time to help me get safer on the road.
 
As a kid, your mittens or gloves were critical to successful outdoor functioning. When they soaked through and your hands became wet and cold, fun time was over. You were handicapped in a snowball fight. You’d put your wet gloves and mittens on top of a radiator or heat vent inside your house in the hopes of accelerating their drying. To this day, I can remember the smell of wet woolen hand wear drying on a radiator… 🧤
 
My mother was the school bus driver, Stepfather was a plow driver, so when snow was forecast, I was put to work helping putting chains on the bus, and the plow truck... then in the morning it was glued to the radio waiting to hear the news... most of the time it was one hour delay, then 2..
Once the "Closed" was announce, it was off to play, get soaked and froze... by afternoon it was chores, shoveling and such.
 
I loved when it snowed when I was growing up, no school, and a lot of fun outside. Then when I had kids I loved it even more. Now with grandkids, it's wonderful. So far this year we had snow 2x's already. What I like the most about it now is my Husband finally agreed to pay a boy who comes around to shovel.
 

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