Posted on 01/08/2014 8:16:31 PM PST by chessplayer
A story from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books proves we've all gone soft.
Record-low temperatures caused by the Polar Vortex have forced schools across the country to close this week. Weather-related school cancellations tend to raise anxieties about whether we're a nation of wimps. During President Obama's first winter in Washington, he complained when his daughters' school closed for bad weather: "We're going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town." In response to this latest round of school closings, a Virginia mom sighed, "Hasn’t anyone heard of gloves, scarf and a hat when it’s cold?? Just bundle up—people do it all over the world. We are such wimps to cancel school."
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
During President Obama’s first winter in Washington, he complained when his daughters’ school closed for bad weather: “We’re going to have to apply some flinty Chicago toughness to this town.” …Meanwhile, it was the teachers’ unions that insisted on closing the schools where?—Chicago. Guess that is what “flinty Chicago toughness” really means.
Same thing here in Maryland, they close on forcasts before the first flake comes down.
They didn’t have school buses back then in 1882.
If Laura Angles got lost in a snow drift till spring that was just Maw and Paws problem not the schools.
If the bus crashes now in snow and ice that’s a huge lawsuit.
But who cares?
We are rough and tough.
Those kids froze proud that they weren't wimps.
It was -27F in Minneapolis on Monday morning.
Little Johnny waiting at the bus stop for a bus that isn’t coming due to gelled up diesel fuel.
You’re asking for trouble if you don’t cancel school.
I have read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books a hundred times and the bolded words are simply not in the books.
1/2 a mile in the snow is 10 minutes
Channel 5 news Monday night showed the Malls in town were packed with kids.
They didn’t close the schools January 12, 1888. Hundreds died in the “Childrens’ Blizzard”.
Some years back there was a winter power outage at my grandmas place. It was expected to last for at least a week. Grandma wouldn’t come to moms house... So my sister went to stay with her to make sure she would be OK. She awoke there the first morning and grandma already had a robust fire going in the fireplace stove. Hot coffee was ready and she was prepping eggs and bacon to cook up on the fire.
Yeah... She was gonna be OK. She said “I lived the first fifty years of my life without power”. For her having the power go out was about as inconvenient as having the cable go out.
I remember when I was in first grade, we all walked 3/4 mile to school - one way. Not a long way at all, but no school buses, no crossing guards, no parent guides, no police. Just a group of kids who would grow as as moved down the street past other kids houses.
Trees break a path. You can pretty much run through a heavily treed woodland.
That’s right. We should brave accidents on the freeway and the teachers too. Who cares even if its possible to extend the school season these days, because most people should keep a dirt farmers lifestyle and hardships so as not to grow too soft.
Why? Because we’re supposed to be tough!
They didn’t close the malls, which shows their toughness. lol
They didn’t have ambulance-chasing attorney’s and clients willing to play the Litigation Lottery at the drop of a hat, either.
We pay these school district administrators a quarter of a million a year and the governor didn’t trust them to make the right decision about closing school. What a dink.
Good catch.
*125 years ago, deadly ‘Children’s Blizzard’ blasted Minnesota*
“Climate historians are quick to note that the “Children’s Blizzard” — so named because many of the victims were schoolkids trying to make it home — was not the most extreme blizzard ever to strike Minnesota. But 125 years later, it remains the most deadly, due to a tragic swirl of circumstances.”
(snip)
“The children
The most shocking and widely reported deaths were of the schoolchildren. Ten-year-old Johnny Walsh of Avoca, Minn., froze to death trying to find his house. Six children of James Baker froze to death while trying to make it home from school near Chester township, Minnesota. They were found with their arms entwining each other in the snow.
Compiling a solid count of the dead remains difficult 125 years later not only because of spotty records and missing rural newspapers, but also because many settlers’ bodies weren’t found for days or even months.”
(snip)
The loss of human and animal life reverberated in Minnesota for years after the storm. Many survivors wore the physical scars.
“For years afterward, at gatherings of any size in Dakota or Nebraska, there would always be people walking on wooden legs or holding fingerless hands behind their backs or hiding missing ears under hats,” wrote Laskin in “The Children’s Blizzard.”
This is what I was objecting to. It's not in the book, not what Laura Ingalls Wilder thought or wrote. Somebody made it up.
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