Bad weather?

I know I walked to school everyday that I attended (or rode my bike) for 13 years, but you know, while I know in my head there had to have been bad weather, other than one day that I trudged out in waist-high snow (I was only 4 feet high at the time) and another day that they closed the school because of ice (I was in 8th grade), I don't remember bad weather.

It seems to me that I must have walked to school in rainy conditions, and a one-plus mile-long walk would most assuredly have left me wet to the skin, even with a rain coat, goulashes, and/or umbrella, I'm certain, but I don't recall sitting in class in wet clothes. While I did attend an old fashioned school, there were no pot-belly stoves in the classroom to warm us up or for us to put our wet clothes near. We had "cloak" rooms -- there we had an assigned hook upon which all our outer gear would be hung/boots on the floor beneath the coats and hats.

I'm not writing this so you'll feel sorry for me and my siblings -- they also walked for 13 years through rain, snow, sleet, wind, etc., just like a mail carrier. We didn't have to carry anything but our lunches. We didn't have homework until high school. I know I've mentioned that before, but I'm proud that my era didn't have to have homework. I'm proud we could get it all done IN the classroom, even though we had TWO play periods a day, one-hour for lunch, and a time each day for music and art, 28 to 30 children in a class, and no teaching assistants. I'm also proud that when I taught school if a child had homework it was only because s/he didn't his/her work completed in class. My students knew that, and most didn't have homework.

When we got home from school, we could be just kids, playing with our friends, reading a book, letting our imaginations run wild (no video games for us), or learning from our parents "life" subjects such as -- for girls -- sewing, cooking, baking, cleaning; and for boys, woodwork, taking out the trash, delivering newspapers, or getting other odd-jobs such as mowing lawns or shoveling snow. It was a different time and much simpler than now.

I say that, because I think of all the car-pooling events parents have to participate in these days, and maybe the lack of all that running around is what made life simpler.

We ate together, we prayed together, we went to bed at the same time. Life was good no matter what the weather.