Great weekend for snow in Colorado! It was cold and windy as is to be expected in January but the powder was like silk--squeaky under foot, board and ski. We even had a nice little dusting in Boulder this morning. I woke up to the glow of orange light coming into my window, looking for all the world like a beam of sunset embers. However, even a dramatic sunrise wouldn't stream though a western facing window--it was merely the piles of powdery snow reflecting the pink-orange parking lot lights.
Waking up to mucho snow made me realize another one of the great thrills of kidhood is lost to this generation--waiting to hear the school closures on the radio. With the Internet, all you have to do is wake up and check online to see if school is open, closed, delayed or whatever. Gone is the giddy excitement while listening to the radio and eagerly awaiting the blessed announcement that mother nature had granted us kids a day of sweet freedom, unless of course we had to shovel the driveway. Because they listed the state of Connecticut schools in alphabetical order, Wolcott came really low on the list. The anticipation was slightly offset by the "Region 16" announcement, which always came before the Wolcott declaration--since region 16 (Prospect and Beacon Falls) kids shared a high school with us, chances were good that if they were cancelled, we were cancelled. Though nothing was guaranteed--once in a while they would have a cancellation while we in town only had a delay.
The whole ordeal was exciting and you could always gauge your chances by looking out the window. If there was only a little bit of snow, you might start to half-heartedly prepare while listening to the radio. It's a safe call because there's usually at least a delay and if there's not, you'd be slightly prepared. For the bold, the more strategic move was to stay in the sweet warmth of heavy blankets and hedge your bets that school was nixed. There may be no better sleep than the forbidden sleep of a snow day. When all the conditions lined up, you could sleep in for a while, take your time getting up then enjoy the bonanza of snow awaiting just outside your window. Nowadays, kids just slink out of bed, check online, update their Facebook profile and go back to sleep.
But maybe it's all for the best--even though I'm only inmy early 30's, I'm arming myself with all the appropriate gripes to be a certified old fart when the time comes.
