Phoebe and Her Unicorn by Dana Simpson for November 29, 2016

The thing to remember about people giving spoilers is that there’s a good chance they’re making things up.

and before the radio, schoolchildren just had to walk all the way to and from the schoolhouse and waited for the teacher to show up

In Houston years ago when I was 9 we had flood days, the snow was never thick enough so far south.

Fingers crossed for no school!

I had to walk in the fog, uphill both ways. Soaked my hair. bummer . . .

Phoebe’s dad would have to be pretty old to remember listening to the radio for that information. They’ve carried it on TV stations for decades.

I remember listening to the radio announcers get to the Catholic schools and would chant the “Litany of the Saints”, Saaaint Andrew, twooo hourrrr delaayyyy….

Oh the days! I remember listening to the radio after a big snow. My son will never experience “snow days” as we live in Miami, FL. He did get a “hurricane day” when Hurricane Matthew blew by us but it’s more rare than snow days in the north, of course.

I grew up in Wisconsin back in the 30s and 40s. Never had a snow day. Later when I was at U of W. an instructor didn’t make it one day. One hour of freedom.

There is nothing as delicious as anticipation.

We had snow days in Minnesota, but it seemed to be up to the individual districts rather than anything statewide (unless there was serious weather, like that -60F day). And I had the bad luck of living in a district that almost never closed, even if everyone around them did.

‘sigh’ Things are so modern these days.

I suppose “earthquake days” could happen in principle around here, but there hasn’t been a serious earthquake in the South Bay since a few years before I was born.

I had walked the mile to school on one snowy day. I got there and then they canceled school because one of the buses got stuck. 1964 NY

Listening for snow days to be announced on the radio was nerve-wracking-if your school announced a delay rather than a closing it was bad enough but if they didn’t announce it at all it was if Christmas had been cancelled. You went around in a state of diminishing hope waiting for the next reading of announcements. Usually the DJ would announce that the next update would be after a song or the news which would then last an interminable length of time.

These are still repeats. Believe me, I’m not complaining, just responding to an inquiry. Someone was wondering if this was new or not. See December 2, 2014:

http://www.gocomics.com/phoebe-and-her-unicorn/2014/12/02

Dad used to walk to school in three feet of snow uphill — BOTH WAYS!

The districts here in the Chicago area were smart back in the late 50s, early 60s: they gave the school closings to WGN which was showing Ray Rayner’s early morning show with Chelmsford the duck and the great original WB and Popeye cartoons. I still love that guy!

I went to a boarding school in the UK. Sadly no chance of a snow day when you live at the school and so do nearly all the teachers :-)