Learning Strategies

Weston, of course, had to have school today. Having a snow day would have been too wimpy. You can’t be Lake Wobegon if you call off school. We didn’t even get dismissed at mid-day, although the forecast correctly predicted a horrible and unsafe drive home (a half day counts as one of the 180 required days under state law). School was not dismissed until 2:50.

The parking lot, of course, was a zoo, with hundreds of cars and lots of buses trying to get in and out. Cars were skidding every which way and getting stranded across the roadway. So I decided to wait until 4:00 to leave. Helpful colleagues and custodians shoveled out cars from approximately eleven inches of snow.

I arrived in JP (to pick up Barbara) at 7:30.

That was a total of three and a half hours, for what’s normally a 45-minute drive. More to the point, I saw many, many stranded cars and several accidents. Why wasn’t school canceled for the day, as it was in most of the surrounding communities? We’re always told that it’s a matter of safety — well, driving home wasn’t safe.

Since 7:30 was too late to head for home and cook dinner, Barbara and I had to go out locally to eat. (I also needed the break!) Had a great meal at JP Seafood, and finally arrived home at 9:15. After this exhausting day — I had left home at 6:15 AM, which was 15 hours earlier — we figured we would now have to shovel our sidewalk. This is a legal requirement after the snow stops. Much to our surprise and pleasure, we discovered that our next-door neighbor had cleared the entire sidewalk with his snow blower!

Unasked-for acts of kindness are always the best.

But why did we have school?

Labels: Weston