WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SNOW?

The first day of the new semester of school brought excitement, more than I would like to have experienced. Students’ trying to find new classes in a building in which all the room numbers had been changed during the break kept things in a tizzy. Just when I thought that control had been restored, the heavens decided to renew the madness by bringing a min-blizzard. Suddenly, a class of thirty-four juniors in high school turned into first graders filled with something akin to pure glee.
I feel sorry for our kids in the area because they rarely experience snow. I figure that’s because we’ve managed to poison the planet enough to warm our temperatures and to end those days of blankets of white. Knoxville is more like Huntsville, Alabama, or Chattanooga now in the way that we receive so little snow. We who are older remember when at least one good snowfall each winter was a sure thing.
In the early 60’s, Knoxville experienced a six-inch snow in April. It was a beautiful site that lasted only a little while. We kids got outside as soon as possible to play in the snow before the sun and seasonal temperatures melted it.
I remember plenty of snows during my high school years. Several times, we were dismissed from school early, and we left in cars, on buses, or on foot. Parents weren’t lined up in front of the school to pick up children; we made our ways home by traditional methods. Teens were sure to go home, lest a swift tanning of the behind occur if they worried parents with their absences. In those times, snows seemed to hang around longer. A teenager can only take so much sledding, snowball fighting, and snowman building before he’s bored out of his mind. When cabin fever set in, we put on our shoes and struck out for a friend’s house, or if we were lucky, our path led to girlfriends’ front doors. No, their parents didn’t necessarily want boys hanging around their houses, but we did keep their daughters from driving them crazy with complaints.
I remember the first years of my teaching career. In the early 70’s I taught at Doyle High School. Knoxville was belted with several heavy snows during those years. In fact, we missed so many days that school days were lengthened, and we even put in some Saturdays to make up the time.
I was a young, flexible man then. Our house was a mile or so from the high school then, and several of my students lived in the same subdivision. They came calling one night, and we rode inner tubes down a steep and winding hill. On one occasion I made the ride. Unable to negotiate a maneuver, I wound up with half my body under a car parked next to the curb about two-thirds of the way down the course. Luckily, I didn’t kill myself or break any bones.
When my children were small, we got some good snows. I spent hours tugging on a handle as Lacey and Dallas sat in the metal scoop of an old coal shovel. I can still hear their giggles as I whipped them around the driveway and street. Sometimes the family hopped in the Pathfinder, and I locked the hubs into 4-wheel drive. The tire treads crunched the snow as we made our way to the grocery store for nothing in particular. We used the trip as an excuse to get away from the house for a bit.
Some snows weren’t so pleasant. One storm was accompanied with artic-like temperatures. Knoxville recorded minus 24 one day, and my car sat with the tires frozen to the driveway. I remember another snow the first year I taught at Karns High School. It caught everyone off guard, and I was stuck with a school filled with students until about 10:00 p.m. Still, another snowstorm turned into an ice storm and trapped me on UT’s campus until 3:00 p.m. the following day. The last “good” snow Knoxville in came with the blizzard in the early 1990’s. Things came to a standstill for several days.
These days, about all we get are snow flurries. The school years have some days built in for inclement weather, but in recent years, we’ve used more of them for rain than for snow. Who can blame the kids for their excitement when they see those white flakes being whipped around by gusts of winter wind?