Snow days: No school, lots of fun

Published March 10, 2008

When it was blowing and blustery last week, I had a fleeting urge to grab a sled and head over to the hill on the golf course.
But the thought passed as quickly as it came and I grabbed an afghan - well, now it's called a "fleece throw" - and snuggled up on the sofa.
As I watched the snow get deeper and deeper against the sliding glass door that leads to the patio, I was thinking about "snow days" and how much kids look forward to them.
I don't remember a lot about the snow days my boys - and my teacher husband - had when they were little. I wasn't there. I didn't get a snow day. Somebody has to put out that paper. No snow days for us journalists.
But I do remember my favorite snow day activity when I was a kid myself.
Ice skating.
We would get all bundled up and my mom would take me and a friend - and sometimes my sister - to the skating pond at Oakwood Park on Grove Avenue in South Lorain.
And drop us off and drive away.
Drive away? Yep, that was something moms could actually do back then - before stranger-danger. Mothers and fathers didn't have to hang around all the time to make sure we didn't get kidnapped or murdered. We got to be on our own sometimes.
As my mother drove away from the park, I would wave, feeling delighted and abandoned at the same time.
Then we would trudge over to the big shanty next to the pond where all the kids went to put on and take off our skates - and, more importantly, to warm up.
We sat down on one of the benches that lined the building's perimeter and pulled off our boots. There was a fire pit in the middle of the building, so I guess there must have been an adult around in some supervisory capacity - or at least to make sure the shanty didn't burn to the ground - although I don't remember ever seeing one.
You had to kind of hold your breath while you were in the shanty - or breathe out of your mouth. The place smelled awful. I always thought it smelled like Limburger cheese even though I had never smelled Limburger cheese. But, if I had, I was sure it would smell like the inside of that shanty.
The room was so warm that you were sweating by the time you got your skates on.
That's what that smell was. It wasn't Limburger cheese at all. It was sweaty, smelly kids bundled up in lots of wet, woolen winter-wear.
When we couldn't stand the smell a second longer, we'd walk across the wooden floor in our skates and go outside and onto the ice.
We'd skate around and around until we got cold, and then we'd go in the shanty to warm up. And that's what we did over and over again all day long.
I never made any new friends at the skating pond for although I wasn't afraid of strange adults, I was plenty afraid of strange kids who might be mean and make fun of us or call us names.
So my friend and my sister and I would just keep to ourselves, skating and thawing and skating again.
And then at some point, we'd spot my mother's car coming to pick us up.
And suddenly, after having been fine all day, we were cold and hungry. Our ankles hurt and our fingers were frozen. She had gotten there just in time.
Isn't that just like a mom?