Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

For those still at work on snowy New Year's Eve, think back.

It's snow days that trace the route from childhood to adulthood.

Back in the day -- the day being several thousand days, from kindergarten through college -- the fear of wintery flakes in freefall triggered an it-came-from-the-skies! reaction: classes were cancelled, whether nap time on our nursery school mats or a college survey class of William Faulkner's novels.

But adulthood soon intruded.

Sliding the kid-loaded sled downhill turned into sliding the debt-laden car during the morning commute.

We traded hot cocoa packets at the ready for car insurance cards within arm's reach.

Wiping snow from faces transformed into clearing ice from wiper blades.

We swapped watching the winner on daytime TV's The Price is Right! react to "a new car!" for the Weather Channel's warning of a new storm system.

We left behind figuring out how to get out of the house.

We figured out how to get home.

For many Rhode Islanders these days, of course, comparing a childhood of carefree snow days with an adulthood of staring out at snow heaps through workplace windows is a luxury.

Year's end will arrive with a high unemployment rate in the Ocean State and other uncertainties -- some don't have the luxury to wax poetic about cold days bathed in nostalgia's warm glow.

They may instead look to New Year's Day with hope. And if resolutions come true, maybe then a few more can afford the moment to think back to the snow days that were escape and ahead to the snow days from which we plan our escapes.

-- projo.com staff writer Michael P. McKinney

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