Cranky old man alert

For people 30 and younger, today’s reaction to our “winter weather event” probably seemed normal. It snowed an inch, so schools across the area either had a two-hour delay, or more typically, canceled classes. For people my age (old), it’s a joke. We remember the days when 3 or 4 inches of snow wasn’t even a blip on the radar when it came to having school. We had it, and we never thought our lives were being endangered. Heck, we live in Western Pennsylvania, and it snows in the winter. Back in the '60s and '70s, when I was going to school, it seemed to snow a lot more, and if school was canceled then, kids knew there’d be enough of the white stuff to build a snow fort. We actually had someone write a letter to the editor recently complaining that their school district didn’t take action to protect the children when a storm hit. Maybe I’m suffering from short-term memory loss, but I don’t recall a single “weather event” this entire winter that should have required a cancellation, and very few that warranted any sort of delay. The letter writer said that “in the last two years, our kids have been sent out on snow- and ice-covered roads too many times.” Um, dude, grab yourself a map of the United States and check out where you are. There are going to be plenty of snowy days here between November and March. This winter, in particular, we seem to have had a lot of little snows. What are we supposed to do, shut down schools in these troubling weather times and have the kids go to school all summer? And how many hours of instruction are our children losing because of the extensive use (overuse) of two-hour delays? I have some advice for those who want to cower in fear every time we get a dusting of snow: Move to South Florida.