Originally Posted by
EastsideAl
I'm not necessarily one of those "why can't they tough it out like I did" people, but I do find it interesting that there seems to be some sort of generational divide on weather and snow days in the schools.
I woke up and looked out this morning and on seeing the situation fully expected that kids would be going to school today. I was surprised when I heard about so many of the suburban systems closing. Like a lot of people here I went to DPS in the late '60s and early '70s and I certainly remember going to school on several days pretty much like this one or a little worse. In fact, I can remember only 2 times that the schools ever closed during my years there, once in 1965 when I was in kindergarten and again around 1974 when I was in high school, both from 20+ inch snowfalls.
And, yes, I remember walking to and from school alone, through dark icy streets and knee-deep snow, with snow blowing in my face and my fingers and ears going a little numb. I'm not bragging, it's just fact and I think most people then just saw it as part of growing up in Detroit.
In fact, my Michigan born-and-bred mother, the child of Canadian immigrants, would have laughed at me when I was a kid for trying to stay home on a day like this. My 85 year old father went out today and brushed his car off and drove downtown this morning at 8:30 AM, just as he does several days a week, and was surprised to find almost none of the younger people at his office. Having grown up here, he too finds it odd that people would take what he sees as normal Michigan weather so seriously.
But these days, with less overall snowfall and fewer very cold days than we had back when I was a kid, and with much better winter clothing available, it seems that parents and children now expect that school will be canceled in this sort of inclement weather. I'm not meaning to be critical, and folks now may be right and we may have been heedlessly foolish back then, but I do wonder what accounts for the difference. Has something changed in the way kids go to school today or in the relationship current-day Michiganders have with our weather?