Snow Day

“It snowed…it snowed…it SNOWED…it S…N…O…W…E…D.”

My brother Timmy woke me out of a sound sleep with his wild whoops and a joyous weather report composed of just two words: “It SNOWED.”

It didn’t take but a few seconds for the importance of his announcement to sink into my slowly waking brain.

It had SNOWED. No school!

I leapt out of bed and threw the curtains back on my bedroom window to view a wondrous winter wonderland of snow-covered cars, streets, trees, and yards in the neighborhood.

My heart was literally bursting with joy because there was no greater gift from a beneficent God than an unanticipated winter storm that dumped a foot of snow onto city streets and sidewalks and almost surely meant a holiday from blue bow ties, white shirts, dress pants, books, spelling lessons and…Sister Joseph Margaret’s stern rebukes.

Back in the day, there was no Internet, and a kid couldn’t just click a link to see what schools had been closed and which ones, dear God forbid, were “opening late.” Back then, Molly, Timmy, Bobby, and I had to huddle around our RCA radio in the attic bedroom and listen to the deep-voiced radio guy read the listings of school closings throughout Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

He started with the “A’s.”

“Aston Elementary School – Closed; Aston Middle School – Closed. Brookhaven Elementary School – Closed”…and so on.

Even though I was supremely confident, with at least a foot of snow dumped on the ground, that I’d soon be headed to the hills of Chester Park with my Flexible Flyer sled dragging behind me, I was still squirming in anticipation as I waited for the five sweetest sounds ever to dance out of the crackling radio:

“St. Roberts Catholic School – Closed.”

But I had to wait, because our school’s name started with “S,” which was way too far down the list for my liking.

“…Chester High School – Closed…”

That elicited a burst of cheers in the room. You see, we lived in Chester, Pennsylvania and if the public schools were closed in the city – then that was a very good omen.

On and on the listings continued.

“Our Lady of Charity Catholic School – Closed.”

Boos in the room. Charity was our rival in the next town over, forever worthy of a good “boo.”

Now, we were getting close. I had been sitting with my back propped against the heating vent cover that was mounted on one of the walls in the attic. Our house was big, old, and very leaky, so the cool drafts on a winter morning always sent us scampering to the heater vents scattered around our house.

But I was standing now, hot with impatience.

“St. Anthony’s Catholic School – Closed…”

Here it comes. Get ready to go WILD. Get ready to ROMP. Get ready for building snow forts, flying down snowy hills, choosing sides in neighborhood snowball wars.

“St. Francis Assisi Catholic School - Closed…St. Michael’s Catholic School – Closed…St. Rose of Lima Catholic School – Closed…Swarthmore Elementary School…Closed.”

Hey, wait a minute, pal. You skipped St. Roberts Catholic School. You skipped OUR school. This isn’t the way it’s supposed to go. Go back and say it, “St. Robert’s Catholic School – Closed.”

“MOM!!!”

All four of the Rumsey school children who attended St. Roberts Catholic School in Chester, Pennsylvania—Bobby, an 8th grader, Timmy, a 6th grader, Molly, a 4th grader, and Terry (me) a 2nd grader—went dashing down from the attic to our mother’s bedroom on the second floor.

Our mother was still sleeping soundly, but not for long.

“Mom, he forgot, he forgot…It’s not FAIR…the radio’s broken…Mom, get up… Mom, HELP.”

Four panicked, pleading, pouting, and probing voices blended into one bleating blast that broadcast our cry of SOS as we surrounded my poor mother in her bed.

First things first.

“Bobby, go get me my cup of coffee.”

Off Bobby scrambled to pour a cup of coffee from the fancy new automatic coffeemaker that our older sister, Cathy, had prepared earlier in morning before leaving to drive for her job as an X-ray technician at Chester Hospital. I guess they didn’t close hospitals because of snowstorms.

Bobby returned with a steaming, hot cup of Joe.

Completing her morning waking ritual, my mother lit up a cigarette from her pack of Kools stashed on her bedside table where the old, corded telephone lived.

It’s only looking backwards in time that it dawns on me that she shouldn’t have smoked in bed, or really smoked at all, but that’s another story for another time.

On this day, Mom transitioned into consciousness while she drank her morning coffee and puffed on her morning cigarette, slowly piecing together a puzzle that revealed an overnight snowstorm, a failure in radio communications, and the indignation of her four school-aged children.

So, our mother did what any good parent would do, picking up the handset on the rotary phone and dialing the six-digit number of the St. Robert’s convent where the nuns who taught us lived in a mysterious, communal nunnery.

We four listened anxiously to the conversation she was having with an invisible arbiter on the other end of the line. Right out of the gate, it was apparent that something was really wrong.

“So, school is open today?” our mother asked tentatively.

What? What did she say? I shook my little ears. I knew I was little and I was still figuring out what adults meant when they said things. I was convinced this was one of those times that I was too young to understand.

But it was true.

“School’s open today,” my mother announced, although we sensed a hint of disappointment in her voice when she delivered the proclamation.

“Everybody get dressed. I’ll get up and make you some breakfast.”

No. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

How could her words be true? It had snowed. There was snow all over. There’s no school when it snows.

But there was school, there was snow?

If I had understood the concept of cognitive dissonance as a seven-year old, I would have had a better grasp on the state of confusion my poor little mind was grappling with.

My brother Bobby expressed the group consensus first.

“THIS IS NOT FAIR. I HATE ST. ROBERTS.”

Yeah, Yeah, YEAH. Now my little mind could take hold of something I could understand.

“THIS IS NOT FAIR. I HATE ST. ROBERTS.”

Boy, did we complain the entire time when Bobby, Timmy, and I reluctantly put on our clean socks and underwear, our white shirts, our dress pants, our blue bow ties, and our black dress shoes that were the signature attire of Catholic school boys in Chester in those days. I’m guessing that Molly was complaining to herself as she put on her blue dress uniform with a skirt that hung well below her knobby knees. I really didn’t know much about girl stuff back then.

We always resented having to wear these clothes to school while our public school friends from the neighborhood went to their school wearing flannel shirts, khaki pants, and sneakers. But on this particular day, this day when there was SNOW on the ground, we felt the insufferable and unjustifiable inequity in a way and in a place deep down in our gut that we never before felt. It really boiled down to a simple truth.

THIS WAS NOT FAIR. WE HATED ST. ROBERTS.

My mother had made a stack of pancakes, which was a breakfast treat usually reserved for Sundays, but that did not mollify us in the least.

After we ate breakfast in a sullen silence, my mother helped button up my winter coat, she helped pull up my snow boots over my black school shoes, then she helped tie a woolen scarf around my neck to protect it from the gusty winds blowing outside, and, right before I headed out the door behind my brothers and sister, she reminded me to put on my pair of woolen gloves to keep my tiny fingers warm on the walk to school, and she gave me a big kiss on my cheek.

Well, I wasn’t even a little grateful.

It probably was terribly unfair, but somehow I blamed her as much as I blamed those awful black-clad nuns whose only purpose in life was to make me stand in line, to sit up straight, to shut my mouth, to fix my crooked tie, to tuck in my hanging shirt tail, to come in from recess when I didn’t want to, to write in cursive and to write it neatly, to force me to read aloud to the class, and to make me come to school when it had SNOWED.

In retrospect, I realize that the nuns did not actually make the call for us to go to school that day. It was, no doubt, a decision made by the Monsignor, the Master of the parish. Women didn’t make the rules or any real decisions in the Catholic Church when I was a boy. Of course, I didn’t even realize that nuns were women until a few years later. So, please forgive a seven-year-old who was still figuring out the lay of the land in the cult into which he had been born.

Anyway, out we ventured into a suddenly dulled winter wonderland for about a half-mile trek to our gray stone penitentiary. It was sunny but freezing cold. Most of the sidewalks hadn’t even been shoveled yet, so we tramped through snow that was higher than my knees. This was NOT fair.

We met up with Tony D’Amato and John Cotter, two older boys who were classmates of my brothers, at the corner of 24th and Howard Streets, where Woody and Johnny Fisher came out of their house to join us on the equivalent of the famous Bataan Death March we knew about from watching cool war movies. Woody was Timmy’s age; Johnny was my buddy.

Molly was walking with her friend Doris and the Coury girls. The girls and boys sort of walked together in the same company but we marched in separate battalions.

On 23rd Street, our numbers doubled in size when the five Slowick boys—John, Andrew, Albert, Martin, and Michael—and their little red-headed sister Cathy swelled our ranks, along with Terry and Timmy Baer and some other Catholic kids who on lived on 23rd Street.

Our Catholic gang of Irish, Italian, and Polish school kids came from different ethnic households, but we were united in our utter disdain for all things St. Roberts Catholic School. There was one commonly accepted truism that transcended any of the usual divisions.

THIS WAS NOT FAIR. WE HATED ST. ROBERTS.

Note: Our family’s heritage was part Albanian on my mother’s side, which was a source of amusement and bewilderment in the neighborhood but, again, that’s a whole other story.

Then, there were the public-school kids from Wetherill Elementary School or Smedley Middle School who were out building snow forts or snow men in the field where we all played and, boy-oh-boy, were they just totally dee-lighted when they saw us in our bow ties and blue uniforms, carrying school bags in our hands or wearing school packs on our backs.

We Catholics were tromping through the snow-covered parking lot of the Acme supermarket on 23rd Street when we heard it coming from the adjoining field owned by Bill and May Cannavan.

“St. Roberts has school! St. Roberts has school!

St. Roberts has school!”

Somehow, the publics had managed to translate our plight into a catchy ditty that pleased them SO much that they sung it over and over and over and over again, to our immense annoyance.

D’Amato picked up a handful of snow and quickly formed it into a firm snowball and hurled the cold grenade in the direction of our tormentors.

He missed them by a mile, which caused the publics to start singing their new hit song even louder than before.

“St. Roberts has school. St. Roberts has school. St. Roberts has school.”

Our gang was about to retaliate with a violent barrage of multiple snow grenades when Tommy Tompkins, a 6th grader who went to St. Roberts, came tearing around the corner of the Acme building like Paul Revere came on that famous midnight ride.

Well, Tommy wasn’t riding a horse, it wasn’t midnight, and instead of announcing “The British are Coming; The British are Coming,” Tommy Tomkins was shouting, “No school. No school. We’re off from school.”

Dare we believe it?

Had Tompkins gone daft?

Was this yet another cruel joke like the one that Mr. Radio Man had pulled earlier that morning?

Just about a minute later, old Joe Slowick, father of the Slowick brood who was the football coach at St. Roberts, came wheeling through the snow on 23rd Street in his old Chevy pickup truck. Mr. Slowick rolled down his window and shouted the magic words to us.

“No school today, kids. They called it off,” he yelled.

Then, after a moment of thought, he shouted, “Johnny, get home and shovel the walk—NOW—or I’ll bop you on your noggin when I get home.”

There, it was official. Confirmed by an adult. Not just any adult, the coach of the football team!

Can you even imagine the pandemonium that ensued?

We started jumping, spinning, and cartwheeling in the snow, right there on the asphalt parking lot of the Acme grocery store. Woody Fisher got a running start and then slid through the snow like he was in a baseball game sliding into second based. Woody ripped up his good school pants, but did he care one whit?

Then, at the apex of our celebratory group mania, John Cotter, who was in the sixth grade with my brother Timmy, wound up three times and tossed his canvas school bag high up into what had become a brilliant blue sky, lit bright by a fiery sun.

The celebration stopped all at once as more than a dozen pairs of eyes watched in amazement as Cotter’s school bag soared up into the stratosphere, turning and twisting in the air, and, as we all stood transfixed watching its flight skyward and then its rapid decent…it finally landed.

The school bag landed on the roof of the Acme supermarket.

By this time, our public-school friends had gathered with our Catholic crew, and when it slowly dawned on all of us where the bag had come down to Earth, and we saw the look Cotter’s face shift from ebullience to astonishment to consternation, we broke into a collective paroxysm of giggles that turned into laughing fits that turned into convulsions.

We laid down in snow and laughed as hard as we had ever laughed in our entire lives. Even Cotter cracked a wan smile after a few minutes.

When the laughing gas finally wore off after ten or fifteen minutes writhing in the snow, we came to our senses and we all ran home to change into our old clothes and to hurriedly prepare for a full day of building snow forts and snow men, waging snowball wars, and sledding the snow packed hills at Chester Park.

I remember that we learned later that Cotter’s parents had to drive over and speak to the manager at the Acme and sheepishly explain about their son’s foolish behavior. Apparently, the manager sent some employee up to the roof to retrieve the school bag.

There you have it, the story of the most famous snow day of my childhood.