I Love the Smell of Wet Wool in the Morning

One of the minor pastimes we engage in here in Florida is watching the weather back in the city we came from. We are never happy to hear that it is seventy degrees in Chicago in February. It sort of negates the whole reason we are here because lets face it, Florida sucks if not for the winter weather. So it is with glee that I see snow and cold is gripping my old home town while I sit here in the sun and warm breezes of Fort Lauderdale. When I was a kid cold winter weather didn't bother me so much as it does as an adult. Kids see winter as a playground. A time to take a death defying trip on a sled, down a hill studded with stout oak trees. No helmets for us, just head first on an old Flexible Flyer. Winter meant snowball fights, sometimes with unethical neighbor kids who weighted their snowballs with rocks buried in them. That of course required that you have a solidly built snow fort out at the edge of your domain, usually the end of our driveway.

I definitely loved a school snow day when I was a kid. It wasn't just a day off from school, but also an unbelievable amount of snow to go out and play in. The best of both worlds. On one morning that I remember, we waited and hoped for enough snow to close down the school, but it was not to be. So it meant I would have to do the long walk to St. George through the snow with my fourth grade friend, Jim. At every drift and icy puddle we would stop and have a snowball fight. If we couldn't find other kids to fight with, we would blast each other with cold, wet, slushy, snow balls.

We were at least twenty minutes late for school that day, and we knew the wrath of Sister Jude would be unleashed upon us. When we arrived, Sister Jude was waiting. In her flowing black robes, black hood, and cowl, she looked more menacing than Dracula to us. She meted out punishment quickly, five raps on our knuckles with her heavy ruler, and the promise of a call to our moms. As a final insult to us, we were ordered to go to the back of the room and sit on the hot steam radiator until our soaking wet pants were dry. As the odor of two nine year old boys steaming wet woolen pants, wafted through the classroom, I'm sure she had second thoughts. But Sister Jude never gave in, even with the protests of the girls who found the smell disgusting, we had to sit there until our pants were dry. Those nuns sure were tough.