My kids' school called no snow days this year, but we did get a heat day this past Wednesday. It was my honor and privilege as a class mom to track people down at their places of business and let them know that, surprise! school was ending at 1 p.m. and they needed to prepare to receive their little hot and sweaty darlings home. While I can certainly sympathize with how difficult it is to learn in an un-air-conditioned classroom on a 90-degree day; and even more with how hard it is to teach; somehow calling school on account of heat seems like an awfully wimpy thing to do. Plus, it's hard to be a parent in an un-air-conditioned house or apartment on a 90-degree day, too, especially when you've had to ditch out of work to do it.

 

When I was a kid, of course, we went to school when it was 100 degrees and did science experiments involving frying eggs on the sidewalk and never thought a thing of it. Didn't even break a sweat while walking to and from school, uphill both ways. Why, we used to wear our warmest new fall clothes on the first day of school even if it was sweltering out, just because they were our new school clothes, darn it, and school was where we were going. These days, these kids, they wear their summer shorts from May to October. Their mothers drive them to the school entrance in air-conditioned vehicles. They tote water bottles to class and stay inside for recess if it's a little warm (or cold, or wet). Weaklings, the lot of them. And their school board, too.