Snowpocalypse 2011

From my office at the top of The Hill

You'll see by the accompanying photo that today my superpower went unused. This is the downside of being the person who calls the snow days--when snow days remain uncalled, those people who loved you so much yesterday melt away as quickly as we wish these piles of snow would.

This morning at about the time I should have been getting responses attesting to my awesomeness, people were being reminded that campus is open today. They were Not Happy.

"Really? Every single other school in the state is closed," one professor responded.

You may, as I'm sure the writer did, add the unwritten "...you evil idiot" at the end of that sentence.

But truly, it was the right decision, despite the sub-zero wind chills, to get our students and staff back to work today. Under-busy students are prone to mischief, especially when the sky is bright blue and the sun is shining on the campus hill.

The hill is beautiful, with shaggy arborvitae trees snuggling up to maples, and boulders chiseled with the achievements of past athletic teams and debate squads scattered hither and thither. It was only in the past couple of years (as liability insurance rates shot into the stratosphere) that sledding has been prohibited there.

Our home at the Corner of Drainage Street and Halfway Down the Hill is tantalizingly close to this hill (hello, house in the upper left hand corner of the picture) and new snow sang like a siren when the Boys were of sledding age. One day, when the public schools had closed but Small College was open, I looked out my office window to see a sled flying downhill, missing trees and boulders by inches.

"What kind of idiot parents are letting their kids risk their brains for seven seconds of adrenaline rush?" I thought, just before I saw the rider wipe out spectacularly in a drift. He crawled out of the snow and stood up, and I realized that Boy#4 had answered my questions.

I have met the idiots, and they are me.