Snow Days Of My Sordid Past
No, that's not the title of my memoir. It's this week's writing
New York City kids enjoyed their first snow day since 2019 this week thanks to the monstrous blizzard that reminds me why I’m grateful I moved from Manhattan almost 15 years ago.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani personally shared the news on Sunday with an overjoyed student — no remote learning just a day of binge-watching TV. It’s a smart move for the mayor to nail down support from high school students who’ll be able to vote for his re-election.
I am a middle-aged parent of a now 12-year-old, so my relationship with snow days has changed dramatically since my childhood in Greenville, South Carolina, where snow days were magical events for kids. They were less joyous for adults who had to work, especially in the South where it snows rarely and the public reaction to it is overblown. The roads are clogged prior to potential snowfalls with residents desperate to clear the grocery store shelves of milk, bread, and eggs. Snow in Greenville, if it stuck to the ground at all, lasted about eight minutes but people still feared that they might resort to cannibalism if they did not adequately stock up before the “blizzard.”
The best scenario was for a “winter storm warning” so dire that they closed schools the night before. That’s when your Monday turned into Friday night. If they closed the schools in the morning, my father just wouldn’t wake me, and the sound of him leaving indicated my freedom.
My father woke me for school each morning at exactly 6:45 a.m. This was without fail. My father never took sick days. And he never had snow days. Those mornings were not easy for my father — curled up in bed, I could hear him scraping the ice off his crap car’s windshield. Then came the painful death rattle of this piece of junk trying to turn over in the cold — “bruda, bruda, bruda,” it wheezed. My father was undaunted and tried again. “Bruda, bruda, bruda,” it croaked. I pulled my pillow closer to me, rolled over on my side, and thought, “That’s a shame.”
Somehow, after multiple attempts, my father would get his 1972 Plymouth Scamp (no, really) running and head off in the snow. Until its eventual collapse in the mid-80s, that insult to automobiles everywhere is what my father took to and from work each day. My mother drove the family car, which had modern conveniences such as air conditioning, a tape player, and brakes.
Back during the 1980s, I eagerly waited for acclaimed meteorologist Charlie Gertz at WYFF to tell me if it would snow the requisite half an inch necessary to shut down the entire city and close the schools so kids could stay home and torture their mothers (as I said, this was 1980s South Carolina).
Gertz’s slogan was “Charlie Said It Would,” which referred to his accurate predictions of the weather, but his record involving the occasional rainstorm meant nothing to me. All that mattered was whether it snowed when he said it was going to snow.
On January 7, 1988, Greenville was hit with a major winter storm event that kept the snow days coming. Mamdani had kids back in school on Tuesday, but we were out for a couple weeks. It was hardly a blizzard: There was about a foot of snow, but it would melt during the day and freeze over night. My father would have to ice skate to work in the morning and my poor mother would have to put up with me all day, as I ate through all our food reserves while watching sitcom reruns and my beloved CBS soap operas.
I still recall hanging onto Charlie Gertz’s every word as he delivered the forecast that would make my parents’ lives miserable. (In fairness, my mother loved the winter weather and would sing “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas” whenever it snowed, even if it were just scattered flurries.)
Unfortunately, Charlie Gertz would let me down a couple years later when he mistakenly forecast another snowstorm. He looked directly at me through the TV set and said, “There’s nothing to do tomorrow but just watch the snow fall. ‘Cause it’s gonna!” Then he winked at the camera, and that wink said, “Hey, Stephen, screw your homework! Stay up late! Enjoy tomorrow’s Young and the Restless. Lauren Fenmore’s gonna be in rare form.” (Watch this classic catfight below. I barely knew what sex was, but Lauren could apparently put a grown-ass man in the hospital. I was intrigued and terrified.)
My mother didn’t share my enthusiasm for Gertz’s forecast. She refused to sing even the first verse of “It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas.”
“That man’s talking nonsense,” she said. “It only ever snows here if it the storm comes through Georgia. If it comes from North Carolina, the mountains will stop it. You’re going to have school tomorrow.”
The next morning, at exactly 6:45 a.m., my father knocked on my door.
“Time to get up, son.”
Clearly, the old man had gone mad. Didn’t he know it was a Snow Day? I was already wearing the fake Victor Newman mustache I’d received as a Secret Society member of the Young and the Restless fan club. No one was going to stand between me and Lauren Fenmore.
I rushed to the window, expecting to see a carpet of white on the ground, but there was only green grass.
Falling to my knees, I vowed revenge against Charlie Gertz for his betrayal. He was probably taking kickbacks from the grocery stores. I also swore that once I was out of school, I’d never get up at 6:45 a.m. again. I think my father felt sorry for me, even though he was able to start his car without trouble.
Charlie Gertz retired in 1992 — the same year I graduated high school. I spent my late teens and most of my twenties sleeping well past 6:45 a.m. Now, I get up at 6:30 without an alarm. Snow days are no longer a “day off,” a relaxing reprieve from your most basic responsibilities. You still have to get the car started in the cold — well, not me, I work from home and can catch up with Ms. Fenmore whenever I like.
That’s my roundabout way of announcing my Snow Day Special subscription sale — 40 percent off the usual annual paid subscriber rate. That’s just $30 a year. Thanks to all who have upgraded to paid subscriber status recently.
Monday, I wrote about how Donald Trump is turning into Jack Torrance from The Shining, only more psychotic.
Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has a lot in common with his scuzzy but dapper great-uncle, the Duke of Windsor.
Neil Patrick Harris wants to produce “apolitical art.” It’s a pity such a concept no longer exists.
Friend of the podcast Cliston Brown joined me for a lively political discussion.
Then there was a bonus BAFTA edition with my friend Lynne Streeter Childress.
This is when I politely ask you to subscribe to my YouTube channel.
That’s it for this week. See you on Monday.
I think I remember it taking a lot to stop the buses, in middle nowhere Ontario where I went to school. Generally if that happened it was really heavy snowfall or freezing rain taking down trees and wires. I remember one day with the trees all turned into white canopies by several feet of fairly early snow, and spending the day outside in it. Think that was the usual pattern. Yeah the buses can’t move and the Hydro workers are very busy, but we’re actually playing in that.
My kids were either walking to school or driven, so more rarely got snow days. Now and then tho school for them was just the few scattered teachers who made it making up games and playing videos.
I grew up in Louisville, Ky (where snow days were relatively common) and after college, moved to Macon, Ga (where snow days are almost nonexistent). I publicly snort-laughed reading this waiting for an oil change because my wife (born and raised Macon) still acts like cannibalism-level events are imminent every time there’s so much as a mention of the word “wintry”. I try to reassure her, what with my nearly 3 years of experience driving in snow (I went to college in Alabama), but still, she expects Snowmageddon every time. Great piece!