Remember waking up after a snowstorm and hoping school was canceled for the day? We would sit by the radio listening to New Jersey 101.5 (ding), waiting to hear our school name.
I went to Incarnation, and I swear every time I turned it on, the station was already reading schools that started with “J.” Come on. Now I had to wait until they got through the rest of the alphabet and circled back to the “I’s”?
There was always a school committee of moms who had to make phone calls to let each parent know school was canceled, but it never came before New Jersey 101.5. I don’t know how the radio station always got the information before the school did, but they did.
My brother and I would immediately go back to sleep for another two hours. Then we would be woken up by our father saying, “Time to shovel out, boys.”
Ugh. I’d rather go to school and get in trouble for talking during class.
Reluctantly, my brother and I would throw on all our snow gear and shovel our parents’ house, our grandparents’ house across the street, and Aunt Blanche’s house next door. You thought school being canceled was fun? Come live at my house. Before any fun happened, work had to be done.
Our other brothers, Jamel and Peyton, who lived right behind us, would help so we could get to sledding at the municipal building hills sooner. Jamel and Peyton’s mom had a Honda CR-V with four-wheel drive, so she HAD to drive us to the sledding spot.
We would sled back there for hours.
We were serious about sledding, too, because we always had the newest sled contraption. One year, the Sno-Thrasher was all the rage, and of course we had four of them. I miss those times.
One morning during my senior year of high school, New Jersey 101.5 (ding) announced that Ewing High School was closed for the day. My parents’ jobs were not closed, my brother was away at college, and it was just me and my dog, Corky, at home.
I called my best friend, DJ, on his house phone. His parents also had to work, and he was bored at home with his dog, Sandy. We both called our parents to see if we were allowed to hang out. We got the green light, with one condition: neither of us was allowed to drive.
DJ lived about a mile and a half from my house, so he said, “I’m coming to you.” I’m glad he did, because I definitely wasn’t walking that mile and a half. Maybe that’s why he’s an Army veteran and I’m not.
This guy trekked up Green Lane and down Theresa Street through the snow just to come play video games with me.
Here’s where I bring it back to my mom, like I always do. I kind of have to, because this Betting on Black column is her masterpiece, and I’m just trying to keep it going as best I can.
My mom and DJ had a special relationship. It amazed me that my mom and my best friend would hang out and watch TV together when I wasn’t even there. The only thing I didn’t love was noticing that some of my clothes would go missing.
When my mom passed, I asked DJ to write something about her. I wanted him to say a few words at her funeral. There wasn’t really time for it, but he sent me what he wrote. I won’t share the whole thing, but this part makes the whole snow day story make sense.
“Donnie and I hung out all morning, and around noon we started getting bored being stuck in the house. So we went outside and started messing around. We went into his shed and found this small plastic, makeshift scooter-snowboard device. We thought, ‘Where can we ride this thing?’
Unfortunately for the Blacks, there was only a small hill in their backyard. Donnie and I got bored with that immediately. So what do you think we did? If your guess was climbing onto the roof of their house and riding this contraption right off it, you’re right.
I remember standing on the roof, about to push off, when I looked to my right and saw Mom’s car pulling into the driveway. She was coming home from work on her lunch break. As she pulled in, she saw me snowboarding off her roof and crashing into the side yard.
Luckily for us, she was in work clothes and couldn’t trek through the snow to strangle us. Instead, she stood in the driveway screaming at us across the yard. She was totally pissed, but at the same time, the cool-mom side of her came out, and I remember her trying to hold back her laughter.”
Man, I miss those days. It snowed a bunch a few days ago, and you better believe I was hoping New Jersey 101.5 (ding) was going to cancel work for me.
Donnie Black was born and grew up in Ewing Township. He currently works at radio station XTU in Philadelphia as a producer, on air personality and promotions director.