Last week the DC area enjoyed some very springlike, almost summer-like, temperatures. The mercury rose above 70 degrees for three days in a row. It was wonderful. It made one think that the days of relaxing poolside were coming very soon.
Then it snowed. Well first it rained. Then it changed to sleet. Then a dusting of snow came on top of that. Note I said a DUSTING. I could have sneezed and blown the snow off the walk. And yet, my son's school district closed. Again. Now don't get me wrong, I love snow. But I am now at a point in my life where if it is going to snow - it has to be paralyzing, government closing snow. Otherwise I find myself in a position of burning leave that I don't have so that LBA is not sitting at home by himself (although soon enough, he might not mind that). I want to take this opportunity to publicly thank (profusely) my neighbor (and fellow member of the collective) who took LBA in for a few hours in the afternoon yesterday so I could get to work and not lose an entire day.
I have to believe the end of snow days is near (although as I have said before, my mother always warned us to make sure we had her birthday present because she always wished for snow on her birthday, which was March 22). Today's snow story is one that demonstrates how winter does not always give up easily.
In April 1982 (?), our family was expecting a visit from a French cousin. She was expected to arrive at JFK Airport to spend a week or so with us. My mother, ever the experienced airport greeter, got ready to go and meet our cousin. There was snow in the forecast and the weather prognosticators were rattling their sabers that it would be a good one (for April anyway). So my mother decided (smartly) to take an airport shuttle to the airport and not try to drive herself.
She made it to the airport without issue, met our cousin and then made their way back to the shuttle desk to work on getting home. It was now getting bad out there and road conditions were deteriorating rapidly. And my cousin? She had been told, "Oh it's almost springtime there, you won't need a winter coat." My mother called me at home (from an airport payphone - there were no cellphones) to tell me they were heading out. My father was stuck in New Jersey, unable to get home from his office in Morristown - he had made it to his sister's in nearby Livingston.
So I waited. And waited. My father called frequently, asking if I had heard anything. Finally after about an hour, the phone rang and my mother (calling from another payphone) told me they had made it to one of the shuttle stops to let out some passengers. They were about a third of the way from the airport to our home. Under normal circumstances a trip between JFK and our house should take about 3o minutes. She told me they had a few more stops to try and make and hung up.
So I waited. And waited. My father called and I updated him. Then my mother called back and said they had made it to another stop and were only about 10 miles away - but the driver was not going to be able to take them to the shuttle stop, he was only going to come off the Long Island Expressway and drop my mother and cousin on the service road and get back on the Expressway. Again, normally this would be fine (the shuttle stop was farther away from the house and it wasn't a bad walk down the service road to our house, which is just off the service road - on a normal day - which this no longer was). I looked out the window and asked my mother if she was seeing the same thing I was. We estimated how long it would be before she and my cousin would be let off and I told her that I would come up and meet them to help them get home.
So I waited. My father called and I told him the latest. I called my friend who lived around the corner (closer to where I had to go) and asked him if he was up for an adventure. I bundled up, grabbed my trusty Flexible Flyer sled and headed out into the darkening evening. I made it around the corner to my friend's house and he joined me and we trudged on through the drifting snow. Normally, the walk from our house to the Expressway exit takes about 15 minutes (it's only a 1/2 mile). After about 30 minutes (with about a 1/4 mile to go), I saw two figures emerging from the snow. It was my mother and my cousin. We put my cousin's luggage on the sled and started back.
My mother's adventure had lasted about six hours, my cousin about three, and mine, an hour.
Then, of course, there was shoveling. And retrieving the car where my mother had parked it for the shuttle. And calming my father down - he tends to worry (and overreact). We wound up making snow bunnies, instead of snow men, as it was almost Easter. And I am pretty sure I had at least one day off of school. Maybe.
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