School Was Closed WHY????

January 2010

Greetings from beautifully wooded, peacefully secluded, sometimes sunny, but mostly not, Petticoat Lake where the days are short, the nights are long, and we are currently experiencing a cold snap here in the beautiful Upper Peninsula. In fact - most schools across the U.P were closed Thursday and Friday due to the cold temperatures. Schools closed because of cold weather? What's that about? It wasn't even that cold. Sure, some places had temps that dipped to 20 below zero, and the wind chill made it feel like 40 below, but seriously, schools closed in the U.P. because it was cold? Have we gone completely namby-pamby?


I tried to recall the times throughout my childhood when the Michigamme School was closed because of cold weather, and guess what?   It never happened.  Not one time.  Zip, zero, nada, neen, nyet!   It didn't matter that the temperature was 20 degrees below zero because if it was only 20 below, we considered it to be a pretty nice day.  And we were lucky to have it.  And wind chill?  Forget about it.  The wind chill was a non-issue.  If anyone even bothered to calculate the wind chill back then, the results were kept pretty hush-hush.  The kids never knew what the wind chill factor was because the parents didn't want the kids thinking it was too cold to go to school.  Back in the day, it didn't matter how cold it was, or what the wind chill factor was, if school was in session we were in attendance.

And we walked to school. All of us.  From all over the town.  There were no buses, cars or minivans filled with happy, toasty warm children who had doting mothers who warmed the car or minivan for 15 minutes before departing the garage, who then drove around the neighborhood, collecting children who would be dropped at the curb in front of the school. No siree. We walked. And we had better not be late, either. We walked to school.  And for some of us, it was uphill all the way. Really.

The topography of the region is such that the town of Michigamme was built on a hill. And for reasons that I cannot begin to fathom, the town planners decided that the highest point in town would be an excellent location for the local school building. I must surmise that the school was built during the summer months because it is obvious that there was no thought given to the inevitable difficulties a young child might encounter when trying to climb the hill to the highest point in town during the winter. 

Let’s say that a typical 5 year old’s fine motor skills are such that he can hold a pencil and perhaps use safety scissors without doing permanent damage to himself.  Gross motor skills, however, still need some work. When 5 year old children run, jump, skip, hop and walk on ice, they are still kinda clumsy and they fall down. They fall down a lot. Now let's dress a clumsy 5 year old in several layers of bulky cloths, then stick a pair of clunky boots on his clumsy feet and send him off to school.  Keep in mind that it is 40 degrees below zero, with a wind chill factor of 60 below,

and the streets are covered with a thick, slippery layer of hard packed snow.  Arriving safely at the school,  located on the highest point in town, was a huge accomplishment for a small, over-dressed, clumsy child of 5.

From where I lived on Main Street, the school was uphill.  There were several routes to choose from; up Main Street then 2 blocks up Barnum Street (known back then as Danielson's Hill). Or I could cross to Lake Street then up Danielson's Hill or take the "shortcut" across the skating rink, go up the alley and then take Danielson's Hill. The shortcut across the skating rink was always risky; wet and sloppy in the Spring, and almost impossible to exit in the Winter because of the huge snowbank on the South end.

When I was a kid we had lots of snow and the snowbanks were enormous. And we were lucky to have them. Not like the wimpy little snowbanks of the past few years.  We used to dig tunnels in the banks and hollow out caves, where we would take up semi-permanent residence until Spring. The snowbank at the South end of the skating rink was a monster of a snowbank and only the bravest of the brave would attempt to scale its summit. It was a struggle to get to the top of the snowbank and it was a struggle to get down the other side. By the time I reached the top, my boots were packed with snow, which would eventually melt and leave my feet wet and cold, my mittens were wet and my hands were nearly numb. And I was sweating from the exertion of the climb and I knew that I was going to be late for school. Eventually I realized that it was not worth the extra time and effort it took to climb the bank; it was faster and easier to just take Main Street to Danielson's Hill and arrive at school almost on time with dry feet and warm hands.

And, back when they never closed schools because it was 60 degrees below zero, schools had dress codes for students. Girls wore dresses or skirts and it didn't matter how cold it was. Girls were, however, allowed to wear long pants or snow pants under their dresses for the walk to school, but when we got into the school building, the warm pants came off and we were bare-legged throughout the day.  Michigamme School was a drafty old building that was heated with a coal fed furnace. That old furnace produced some of the finest clinkers you ever saw and every once in a while, as a special treat, we were allowed to collect clinkers for a class project.  And we were lucky to get them.  Despite the fact that we spent the days in that drafty old school, we were sent outside for recess, even if it was cold.

And after lunch, we went outside again. And we played - in the cold - and sometimes the girls wouldn't bother with the stupid snow pants, we just went outside bare legged.  And we played - in the cold.  When school was out for the day, we walked home. We didn't call our parents to come and pick us up; we put on our warm clothes and hit the snow-packed pavement. Sure, it was down hill all the way home, but, I had to walk into the wind.  Back in the day, the wind was always in my face. That's how the wind was back then.  If it was below zero - and it always was- you could be sure that the wind would be in your face.

Most days, even though the wind was in our faces and it was cold, we played as we made our way home. We had snowball fights and we made snow angels. Some of the kids rode steel-runner sleds down the middle of the streets, and some of us skated across the skating rink in our boots. When we got home, we changed out of our wet school clothes, put on dry play clothes, if we were lucky enough to have them, ate supper, and went outside to play - in the cold - and we stayed outside until we were so cold we had to go home.

Back in the day, it was cold.  Really cold.  And we had lots of snow.  And we never had days off from school because Mother Nature was unkind.  In some ways, we     had it a lot tougher than kids have it these days.  And learning life lessons the hard way isn’t all bad.  One life lesson is that the real world does not stop because it's cold outside.  If it's cold outside, dress warm.   If it’s too cold to walk home at lunch time, pack a lunch and if the snow bank is too big to climb over, walk around.

And that’s all I have to say about that…