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The Nederland school bus picking up in our neighborhood.

Seeing those first flakes falling out of the sky.  Anticipation building a snow starts to blanket the back yard, and then the street in front of our house.  As the inches of snow built up alongside our walk way, I thought Maybe, just maybe…  Could we get a snow day tomorrow?  I would listen to the radio early in morning.  They would announce the school closings in alphabetical order.  Since our school, Parkway Central, was preceded by O, I had to listen to endless listings of Catholic schools before that moment of truth arrived — Our Lady of Peace, Our Lady of Holy Sacrament, — they would go on and on.  How many Our Lady schools could there be in the St. Louis metro area?  When they finally got to the Ps and announced Parkway Central school district, I was so, so happy.

One of the giddiest moments of my childhood was one of the biggest snow storms in St. Louis’s history — when 22 inches of snow fell over the course of two days.  They actually closed our school for an entire week.  Not only a snow day, but a snow week.

On snow days, the kids of our neighborhood would congregate to our back yard.  We had a very steep, tilted back yard that was around an acre in size.  If you started at the upper corner, and sledded to the opposite corner, it made for a pretty wild sledding ride.  Making it even more exciting was the very large locust trees in between that had to be avoided, as well as the snow bank at the end from our neighbor’s shoveling of their driveway.  The Flexible Flyer sled allowed for steering, which was useful navigating around those trees, but it didn’t work great in deeper snow.  A plastic saucer or toboggan was better, but provided no steering.  I remember rocketing down the hill, spinning away, and hit the snowbank, going right over the top.  SPLAT! as I hit hard on the asphalt pavement of our neighbor’s driveway.

All these memories came flooding back during the last month during the last two snowstorms — one of almost two feet and one from this past Tuesday of 15 inches.  Alas, Nederland schools are part of Boulder Valley School District, and is really the only school located at such a high elevation of 8500 feet – a good 3000 feet higher than the majority of the schools in Boulder County.  This puts the Nederland schools at a distinct disadvantage in regards to getting a coveted snow day, since frequently the rest of the schools do not get near the snow they do.  This was the case when the rest of Boulder County received 2-5 inches, while Nederland received 15 inches.  On cue, I saw the school bus go down the road in our neighborhood picking up the kids Tuesday morning.

Such is the case in most mountain communities.  When a town averages 200, 300 and even 500 inches of snow per winter, you can’t give out “snow days” willy nilly.  The standard for the amount of snow and conditions that warrant a snow day are much, much greater, or the kids would be making up days well into summer.

When I lived in Lake Tahoe where receiving 300 inches of snow per winter was the norm, school buses routinely chained up and rolled on through storms dropping up to 2 feet of snow.  You had to get a really big dump to cancel school there.  Then again, the kids there not only got a winter break and a spring break off, but an entire week in February off for what they deemed “Ski-Skate Week.”  Here in Colorado, many mountain counties such as Grand County located near Winter Park Ski Resort, have 4-day school weeks, granting every Friday off for kids and families to ski.

So what defines a snow day for a mountain kid?  I guess it all depends not only what’s happening in the mountains, but what’s happening in the town below.  And if that doesn’t work, some families aren’t above just taking a hooky day to enjoy all that local powder…

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