One of things we have lost with the emergence of digital communication is a wonderful thing called being caught by surprise.

Today, when something happens, we hear about it instantly, usually on multiple platforms. In fact, we sometimes have to go to great lengths to avoid hearing about something.

That is what distinguishes snow days of today with those of my youth.

Today, weather forecasting is aided by the use of sophisticated radar systems, weather satellites, supercomputers and mathematics models. Sixty years ago, none of those tools existed, which meant the weather often caught us by surprise. Sometimes this resulted in tragedy, sometimes in inconvenience and occasionally a wonderful and rare thing called Snow Days.

To understand the magical quality of a Snow Day in the South relies on an understanding of the concept of scarcity. What is to us is considered a snow event, say two or three inches of snow, would come and go without notice in other parts of the country. Snow here is like rain in Phoenix, a rare and wonderful thing. When it rains even the smallest amount in Phoenix, TV news crews scurry to find a mud puddle for their reporters to stand in during live shots. It’s the big story of the day.

It was that sort of rarity that made Snow Day special, along with the fact that they came with little warning. Rumors of snow began to circulate the night before, only to be confirmed or dismissed the next morning. The evidence was just outside the window. We all knew it didn’t take much more than just a covering of snow, maybe as little as two inches, to trigger a Snow Day.

What our eyes told us had to be confirmed, which meant every household tuned in to the local radio station to listen to someone reading the list of school closings for dozens and dozens of schools all over the region. Although we had access to three TV stations – Memphis, Tupelo and Columbus – I don’t recall anyone relying on TV to find out about school closings. It was almost like there was some sort of gentlemen’s agreement that Snow Day announcements were the exclusive domain of radio.

Usually, school closings were a Snow Day, singular. By the following day, the snow was pretty much gone and normal activities resumed.

Because there was no advance notice, kids didn’t get to sleep in on a Snow Day. We were up at the usual time. So when we heard our school closing over the radio, we were alert and ready to make the most of it. This was important because it always seemed as though the sun would pop out around noon and the snow would begin to melt. Whatever was to be done in the snow required immediate attention.

There were a few things almost everybody did – snowball fights, snow angels, sledding, making snowmen and snow cream.

Snowball fights (mostly boys) and snow angels (mostly girls) were easy enough to pull off because neither required much snow.

Sledding required a bit of innovation and a good site. I don’t ever remember any kid having an actual sled, so we improvised. The most common substitute was cardboard and garbage can or barrel lids. Then, of course, you needed a good hill to slide down. You never realize just how flat your world is when you’re looking for a sledding site.

Snowman-making was mostly an exercise in futility. With only a couple of inches of ground cover, snow was in limited supply, so the snowmen we made were small and dirty because every bit of snow had to be used in the construction, even the snow that could not be separated from the soil. All of our snowmen looked like Pig Pen from the Peanuts cartoon.

What we did with great success was make snow cream, a simple concoction of snow, evaporated milk and vanilla extract, items common to pantries of that era. Unlike snowman construction, care had to be taken in collecting the snow for the treat, which meant carefully skimming the pristine snow off the surfaces where the snow had collected.

It’s been ages since I’ve made snow cream, but I can still distinctly remember the smell, the taste and the texture. It is the strongest association I have when I think of snow.

Kids will always be kids, so I assume kids today enjoy Snow Days as much as we did in the ancient of days. What enhanced our pleasure, something kids today probably will never know, was the element of surprise that came with it, like getting a gift when it isn’t even your birthday.

Hardly anything catches us by surprise in this age of lightning-fast communication.

That’s mostly a good thing.

But not always, snow days being an example.

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

Slim Smith is a columnist and feature writer for The Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].

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