Midstokke: Snow days aren’t what they used to be

I have officially joined the generations preceding mine in what appears to be an eternal line up of people claiming that things are just not what they used to be. As penance for this predictable stage of aging, I’m letting my hair go gray.

Things have never been what they used to be. What is important in making this statement is the tone of condescension implying that, whatever the things were, they were better then and they are worse now. The new generation, if following appropriate etiquette, should solemnly nod in response to this and accept their fate in an ever-declining state of affairs, while acknowledging some invisible weakness or moral decay or eroding work ethic that makes them and theirs personally responsible for the worsening of the things.

Take the modern snow day, for example. Snow days are not what they used to be.

My brother and I had a 2-mile walk to the bus stop (after my parents gave up on home schooling us). Unlike the preceding generations’ uphill-both-way roads, it was only uphill on the way home.

The criteria for snow days in the 1980s was markedly different. I think they didn’t call off school until a child or two succumbed to hypothermia in a drift or a teacher got buried in a roof-shed avalanche while attempting to go to work. Even if they did call off school, my family did not know about it because we didn’t have a phone. We had a CB radio over which my mother primarily conducted midwifery much to the alarm of truckers passing through.

I have recollection of attempting to convince my mother it was a snow day. My mother grew up in sunny San Jose, California, and was determined to break the chain in the ever-softening of society by raising tough kids, so she’d send us trudging down the road to wait for the school bus. Fueled on a bowl of cornflakes with several teaspoons of sugar on top, we’d make the odyssey to the mailboxes, wait until frostbite set in, then schlep our swishing snow pants all the way back home. By then, we were too exhausted and soaked to enjoy typical snow day activities – igloo building, sledding and the like – of more civilized families.

But this was when things were different and children were used as a form of indentured servitude, compensated with room and board and the occasional cup of Swiss Miss hot chocolate with woefully few marshmallows on top. We lived and worked in the snow, hauled firewood, dragged buckets of water up from the creek canyon to heat them on the stove for “bathing.”

School, what with its indoor plumbing and stable thermostats, was our reprieve from the relentless business of surviving winter.

The devolution of humanity may very well be measured by their resilience (or lack thereof) to inclement weather. The snow flurries in North Idaho this week resulting in a few inches of powder set off an alarm system equivalent to Snow Defcon 1. By 4 a.m. I had three missed phone calls, several emails and multiple text messages announcing that school would be closed for the day.

In some circles, this might be considered public safety progress.

I tried to make the best of it by asking my teenager to come help me paint the new house. I even promised hot chocolate and real marshmallows.

“Nah,” he said, wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt and shorts because this home is heated by forced air and a gas fireplace with a remote control. “I think I’m just going to do some homework.”

We both know the veracity of this statement is questionable.

In my own childhood, homework was the relaxing reward for getting the chores done. It wasn’t exactly uphill both ways, but I’m pretty sure the hills were steeper. Things aren’t what they used to be, but as I hear my kid plucking away on the guitar or cleaning paintbrushes, I’m not sure that’s always a bad thing.

Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com.