Hey NYC Kids: SNOW DAY!

In the closing minutes of the movie "Hope and Glory", a story about the life experiences, for good or ill , during times of unspeakable horror and idyllic moments in the English countryside, of a Londoner schoolboy during the Second World War, we see the unabashed glee of the entire student body who arrive to find their school has been bombed and destroyed by the German blitzkrieg. "Thank you, Adolph!", an elated ten year-old boy joyfully exclaims as he throws his school books into the air. There was something of that macabre joy and irony here in New York City today as the first official "Snow Day" was called on the almost unpresented night before this hellicious storm even hit.
                                                                                                      

The palatable joy that bust forth on my Facebook feed last night around 9pm was fast and furious, and not from the kids.  As a retired New York City educator: teacher, mentor and staff developer, I have many friends and relations who are still involved in that behemoth of a bureaucracy known affectionately as the DOE: The New York Department of Education. Over my many years in the employ of this municipal agency, the calling of a "snow day" has always had major political as well as public safety considerations. It always appeared "dicey" to me once mayoral control of the schools was wrested from local school districts by Mayor Bloomberg in the early 2000's. During that time most decisions came out of "Tweed Courthouse" that hunk of a building that bears the name one of the most corrupt men in our city's history, William "Boss" Tweed, who ran this municipality from his political core, the Tammany Hall Democratic Club. It sits on Chambers Street in one of the most congested parts of Manhattan.                         

One thing locals understand about Manhattan is that it is built on rock, a very specific rock called Manhattan Schist, a gneiss that is the result of volcanic activity and then the movement of a polar icecap that resulted in a very hard and dense bedrock that makes the construction of skyscrapers possible (that, and the invention of the elevator). This bedrock holds the heat that is generated by both the subway system and the steam heat systems that warm our many municipal buildings which surround City Hall and the Tweed where such decisions as school closings are determined. So when decisions are made in Manhattan, where snow melts quickly, the rest of the city suffers and shovels out from under lots of outer-borough snow.  Mayors Dinkins, Koch and Bloomberg were all Manhattan dwellers whose children were all either grown and gone or non-existent, so their decisions were made from an economic point of view....i.e. parents need to get to work; ergo, schools need to be open. Now we actually have a Mayor whose children went to public schools when the family lived in Brooklyn on a street that did not always get plowed on a regular basis.  He understood the dilemma: Do I keep them home, or do I send them out in the storm? Who is going to be here if they stay home? Whom can I call to help out? These questions are easier to navigate the night before as opposed to the morning of. 

But I digress.                              

I recall with fondness those days spent snuggled under my parents' down comforter listening intently on the local radio hoping to hear that my personal school was closed or, for the "big announcement" that ALL the schools in the city: public, private and parochial, were closed. The one thing that knitted all of the schools together was the school bus system, and once that was compromised, the whole system ground to an icy halt. Ah, the sweetness of that news, nothing could compare except that final June day that marked the beginning of summer vacation.  But summer break or the hard won winter break (once referred to as Presidents' Week) are known factors, a "Snow Day" is serendipitous and random...a gift from Mother Nature, so to speak...an unearned respite that causes one to slow down and hunker down and often inspires a day of baking and soup making that will fill your home and your stomachs with the joys of the winter's cuisine we often take for granted.

So, boys and girls, friends and foes,daughters and sons, grandchildren and happy nieces and nephews: Enjoy! Relish this gift of at-home time granted on this snowy and windy winter day...make merry and make muffins and most of all make memories!