I was just chuckling over a story from my first year here in MD. I came here from New England in my little Volkswagon Cabriolet for a teaching job in Montgomery County. When I first arrived, I really enjoyed the extended warm fall weather, delightful in a convertible, but soon the cold came through. I don't like that!
Anyway, as the first snow of the season approached, I was forewarned by all my fellow teachers that school was certain to be cancelled, not even opened late, if there was one flake in the air. I laughed at that comment, but all the same I was glad at the thought of having a snow day with little snow to worry about. The next day, there was a light dusting on the ground when I woke up, so I quickly turned the local news on the radio. Not once did they mention any school cancellations, at least not for Montgomery County, so I gathered all my school things and headed out to my little car. I was a bit surprised, as by this time the snow was falling pretty heavily. I assumed I would find many unhappy teachers at school when I arrived, especially after their proud proclamations of "Snow Day!" the previous afternoon.
As I made my way to school, very slowly, trying to avoid the other cars on the road who apparently were controlled by novice wintry weather drivers, I noticed the lack of traffic that I so often would encounter along the busy thoroughfare. I began to wonder if I'd missed the school cancellation announcement, so I quickly turned on the radio. By the time I had reached school, a 15 minute drive, I had still not heard any cancellations, but I found only one car in the parking lot. As I made my way up to the third floor (thinking I'd missed the "late open" announcement) and found the owner of that one car, the kindest, sweetest woman with many years of teaching under her belt, she kind of chuckled at me. She said, "Only you and I would be crazy enough to venture out in this blizzard on our day off!" Then, noticing the look of shock on my face, she finished with, "You thought we had school today?" We both burst out laughing. I honestly couldn't believe we didn't. I said, "You mean, it's not even a delayed open??"
The ride home was nearly disastrous! There I was zipping along in my little VW with all these drivers, no kidding, just stopping in the middle of 29 when they didn't think they could go any further. I felt like I was dodging pylons as I plowed up the hill after crossing the reservoir. I'm lucky I made it home with all those crazy drivers. You would have thought they had never seen snow in their lives, let alone had driven in it! Later that year, when we had our first full scale blizzard, you would be driving along a three lane road and all of a sudden, in the right lane, a 10 foot pile of snow that they didn't know how to remove - crazy!!
I think Marylanders have come a long way in 13 years since I arrived. People used to chide me on my superb snow driving abilities (I have a friend - Pete - from Gordon to thank for all those snow driving tips!) and I used to tell them, "People in New England know how to drive better in the snow because they know when to stay home!!"
Anyway, as the first snow of the season approached, I was forewarned by all my fellow teachers that school was certain to be cancelled, not even opened late, if there was one flake in the air. I laughed at that comment, but all the same I was glad at the thought of having a snow day with little snow to worry about. The next day, there was a light dusting on the ground when I woke up, so I quickly turned the local news on the radio. Not once did they mention any school cancellations, at least not for Montgomery County, so I gathered all my school things and headed out to my little car. I was a bit surprised, as by this time the snow was falling pretty heavily. I assumed I would find many unhappy teachers at school when I arrived, especially after their proud proclamations of "Snow Day!" the previous afternoon.
As I made my way to school, very slowly, trying to avoid the other cars on the road who apparently were controlled by novice wintry weather drivers, I noticed the lack of traffic that I so often would encounter along the busy thoroughfare. I began to wonder if I'd missed the school cancellation announcement, so I quickly turned on the radio. By the time I had reached school, a 15 minute drive, I had still not heard any cancellations, but I found only one car in the parking lot. As I made my way up to the third floor (thinking I'd missed the "late open" announcement) and found the owner of that one car, the kindest, sweetest woman with many years of teaching under her belt, she kind of chuckled at me. She said, "Only you and I would be crazy enough to venture out in this blizzard on our day off!" Then, noticing the look of shock on my face, she finished with, "You thought we had school today?" We both burst out laughing. I honestly couldn't believe we didn't. I said, "You mean, it's not even a delayed open??"
The ride home was nearly disastrous! There I was zipping along in my little VW with all these drivers, no kidding, just stopping in the middle of 29 when they didn't think they could go any further. I felt like I was dodging pylons as I plowed up the hill after crossing the reservoir. I'm lucky I made it home with all those crazy drivers. You would have thought they had never seen snow in their lives, let alone had driven in it! Later that year, when we had our first full scale blizzard, you would be driving along a three lane road and all of a sudden, in the right lane, a 10 foot pile of snow that they didn't know how to remove - crazy!!
I think Marylanders have come a long way in 13 years since I arrived. People used to chide me on my superb snow driving abilities (I have a friend - Pete - from Gordon to thank for all those snow driving tips!) and I used to tell them, "People in New England know how to drive better in the snow because they know when to stay home!!"
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