PLYMOUTH — That’s right, when we were kids, we walked to school every day, uphill both ways, and in snow two feet deep.
We walked to school in the morning, back home for lunch, back down for the afternoon, and back home at the end of the day.
Then we changed clothes and went outside to play in that two feet of snow. We built forts, and we had snowball fights, and we went sleigh-riding down hills as steep as Kilimanjaro.
We were tough. We loved it all. We would return home with rose-colored cheeks and an appetite.
Now, many of these same tough kids have changed. They are now quivering fraidy-cats who can’t stop checking their phones to see how much snow we are going to get. They are running to grocery stores to empty the shelves of milk, bread, toilet paper, frozen dinners, and, for reasons unknown, Little Debbie’s snacks.
Those same tough kids now cower on the couches or recliners, watching their big-screen TVs and worrying about when the kid next door will clear their driveway and sidewalk.
Thank goodness we have all those “necessities.”
But today, when we look out our windows, we will see that the world has survived once again. The snow has fallen, and likely, so have a few of us. But the roads appear passable, and the kids did clear the driveway and sidewalk.
Now, some places were whomped, and as bad as it may have been, the show will go on.
So now we will return to our usual lives, leaving us to find something else to worry about.
The Super Bowl is set, Trivia Night is on, and all is well in Mudville.
We must resume posting all that vital information on social media — like what we ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We also want to take all those creative pictures of measuring snow to see if we got the deepest accumulation, or was it, again, somewhere in the Midwest or Buffalo, N.Y.
Many have shoveled and shoveled and shoveled. Others have used their snowblowers constantly. Others have good kids living in the neighborhood who want to earn a couple of bucks.
And as we begin to plan our days again, we stop to wonder where we will store all that toilet paper — at least it doesn’t have an expiration date.
Of course, we will also have to deal with our friends who live down south. They want to know how much snow we got and what the temperatures have dipped to.
Just tell them we got more than a foot, it’s close to zero degrees, but there’s no humidity.
Build a snowman and post a picture on social media. Be creative. Smile as you pose for the picture. Let the world see that deep snow and freezing temperatures can be enjoyed.
Back in the day, we couldn’t wait for the snow to arrive so we could go sleigh-riding. We had some big hills in our neighborhood — Nottingham Street was the best. About six of us would head up Reynolds Street, over Third Street, to the top of Nottingham. The first kid would go down and cross Second Street, cross First Street, and end up on West Shawnee Avenue.
That kid would walk back up, dragging his sled, to Second Street and wait to watch for vehicles. The second kid would go all the way down, then walk to First Street and wait. It was a system with safety in mind.
We would do this for hours — never shivering and never complaining about the cold. Why? Because it was fun.
We also had other sleigh-riding areas with no vehicular traffic. Over on Barnes Street, a path wove through a wooded area. It was downhill all the way, and no streets to worry about traffic. But it wasn’t as thrilling as Nottingham Street.
After hours of sleigh-riding, we would return to our warm homes, remove the snow-covered coats, pants, gloves, and boots, and dry off. We would don some sweatpants and a hoodie and enjoy mom’s lunch — usually her delicious red vegetable soup with homemade noodles and a sandwich.
After watching some TV — hopefully “Leave It To Beaver” was on — then we would decide what our next activity would be.
If not a return to sleigh-riding, we would stay inside and play “Strat-O-Matic Baseball,” electric football, or maybe “Monopoly.”
It was all good.
And we always had enough “necessities.”