School snow days, what they are today for me...

We all remembered as kids having no school because of a snow storm, especially if you lived in the New England areas. We do get our share of snow from year to year and depending on your area, you might get more than others. For me, it was awesome when I was in elementary and middle school back in the 70's and 80's. Snow days were fun, we all went outside and played in the snow all day and never came home until we were all tired and our clothes were all wet from having so much fun.

Sledding was a popular thing to do also during snow day and some parks and playgrounds close to us that had decent hills, attracted many people. My favorite place to go sledding was Roger Williams Park and Zoo, a well known snow day destination for people who loves to go sledding. The park had many steep and long hills and some were dangerous which attracted lots of daredevil kind of people, competing with each other as they raced down the hills.

During my earlier years, snow days were great, because as a newly arrived Cambodian refugee in Rhode Island back in 1976, snow was a culture shock, every time it snowed, it was like in a dream to me. At nine years old, that was the first time I ever saw snow. It's hard to describe, growing up in the jungles of Cambodia, running around bear-footed half naked, and then coming to a land that's completely opposite. The weather, sceneries, people, and yes, the shoes and clothes were all new to me. I never had a pair of shoes and wearing fully covered clothing until coming to America. Snow was something that I was not used to seeing and being a typical nine year old, I got used to it real fast, and love to play in the snow, especially on school snow days.

Today it's a little different for me, on February 6, 2025, while driving the school bus back to school, dropping the kids off after a basketball game, I heard loud cheering noises coming from the back of the bus. Apparently, the kids found out that there's no school tomorrow because of a potential snow storm. I was like what are they all excited for, they now have to makeup the school day later, but then I thought how excited I was back in the days.

Being a school maintenance worker and school bus driver, my jobs never ends, there's always something that needs to get done. The kids gets excited about snow days, but I have to get prepare for shoveling snow, lol. Hopefully while all the kids and all the staff at school gets a day off and enjoy the snow day, I will be cleaning the snow and putting ice melt down, getting the school ready for the next day. Depending on the amount of snow, I might need to get the snow blower ready, making sure there's enough ice melt, luckily weather predictions are never right, and we'll probably not get too much snow.

Through the years, I've always had multiple snow removal responsibilities, either my family or someone needing my services. One day I came up with an idea to cut up a big piece of wooden board and attached a thick broom stick to it, enabling me to push more snow, and saving time with less effort. The wooden board idea wasn't a good one, so I went to a plastic material board instead as new technology keeps developing. Plastic materials are now being used more because it last longer in the cold elements.

Having a homemade big plastic board with a broom stick attachment as a shovel, makes my snow removal job a lot easier and faster. Sometimes you need to think outside the box, unfortunately, wished at the time, I had patented it because someone came up with the same idea but with different plastic materials and handle. Maybe I should become an inventor. You need to keep learning everyday and force you mind to figure things out, there's always a way, never stop learning.