Yes, I know my friends in colder climates make fun of us. At the first words of any expected precipitation, folks in North Carolina run to the stores for bread and milk. We don't really even know why we do this. It's just our custom. Part of our snow hibernation process. Snow days are precious to us. We don't get them too often, so when we get an inch or two and everyone stays home and watches television (constant weather and driving conditions) and eat really yummy stuff. Well, unless you are at my house where you would probably eat soup and cereal.
I loved snow days growing up. I loved playing in the snow. OK....truth.....I really didn't like it very much. I liked the idea of it. That anticipation thing again. We would get all bundled up, put bread bags over our shoes, and go out in the winter wonderland that was our neighborhood over on Florence road. Creating tracks in the pristine snow, making snow angels....such fun. Our road had a huge hill, and traffic would all but stop so the neighborhood kids could sled down it. Some of the dads positioned themselves at the bottom of the hill to catch wayward sleds, and to make sure no traffic headed down the street. I admit....I was a bit of a scaredy cat. I watched more than I sledded. It didn't take long before I was ready to go in, track snow all over the house, remove the snow gear and settle in for hot chocolate. After a while I would be ready to go out for another ten minutes or so and the cycle would start again, until my mom would threaten us with required amount of time we had to stay outside (30 minutes) or for us snow play would be over for the day.
We made snow cream. Well, mom made us wait until the second snow for this since the first snow was supposed to clean out the air of pollution. Yeah, right. "Clean" snow, sugar, vanilla, milk. Not great, in my opinion, but tradition. A snow day must.
Looking for your school system's name to go across the chyron at the bottom of the screen was the special morning activity. Thankfully others in my family had longer attention spans, because mine usually gave out at the important moment to look and I missed it.....and had to watch the alphabet get to "Iredell" once again. The phone calls people get today.....how awesome are they? And they seem to call school off earlier now than we used to, too. Colleges have also gotten into it. When I went to Carolina they NEVER called off classes for snow. If you skipped, you took your chances that the teacher wouldn't show up. To me those were some of the most fun classes. I loved collecting brownie points.
When I lived in Greensboro, I remember my roommate Nancy and I going to Kroger for an emergency grocery store visit. Probably it wasn't the safest driving time, since it was coming down pretty well and sticking to the roads, but we made it with no trouble. The lines at Kroger were all the way to the back of the store, and yes we stood in them. The store ran out of bread and milk, but we were good with that. Our important purchases? Mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. We wanted homemade pizza. The perfect snow food.
With today's technology it is now is so easy for me to work from home, that most snow days I work from my couch as I watch the snow fall out my front window. I miss the possibility of a true snow vacation day.....work now goes on regardless. But there still is a contentment to the cocooning and a warmth in the memories. There is nothing like a snow day. I love them. Hopefully we'll see one this week.
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