Alberta Clipper

So. Big storm in the Northland today. They even have The Weather Channel guys in Duluth. The first report I saw them do, they were standing in front of their hotel--not that you could tell from the shot. I'll be watching them as the day goes on, just for entertainment value.

Where I grew up on the other side of the state from Duluth, the storm has already hit. My old school had announced cancellation before the 10 o'clock news. That's not how it used to be.

The old administrator used to be rather hesitant to call off school. In fact, I don't think he ever called off school until he tried to get there himself. If he couldn't, then he'd call off school. It was as if the man didn't watch, or didn't believe the weather reports. It was also as if he thought the storms were a conspiracy of the students, done so they wouldn't have to go to school that day. Lazy kids, conjuring up blizzards like that.

Even when the weather was bad enough to not send out the busses, he would only delay school--first by one hour, then two, while the rest of the kids in the county had gotten to sleep in. In as remote a region as I'm from, some kids had to get up as early as two hours before school to get ready and then ride the bus. They'd be sitting there in their school clothes, bags ready, breakfast long eaten and Captain Kangaroo on television, with one ear to the radio just waiting to for the announcer to get back around to our school.

I'm pretty sure it never occurred to the administrator that he was putting the town through hell by delaying his decision. The guy wasn't big on observing anything but his own profound thoughts.

Oh, and the announcements themselves! We usually listened to them on the radio, because on the radio they would read the whole list start to finish, and then start over again. On local television, they would run the cancellations as a scroll across the bottom of the screen, but only during programming. They'd stop during commercials; I don't think they had the technical ability to keep it running all the time. However, when they'd come back from commercial break, they'd start the list from the beginning. So while Alvarado and Argyle and even sometimes Oslo and Stephen were told over and over again that they had been cancelled, we would sometimes have to wait an hour, just to find out we were still only delayed.

My town started with a W. We had one consolation in regard to that, though--at least we knew the kids in Warroad were going through the same hell as us.

Misery loves company, after all.

So, my dear residents of Warren: I hope you got lots of rest last night. You deserve it.