Snow Closings

It is snowing in New Jersey. People are going home from work and the kids are out of school (and, reports my wife, running amok in the public library).

I guess I can understand that. It is snowing pretty hard.

But has anyone noticed that these days they have a hair trigger on the ol' snow closings? Last week they let the kids out of school early in Flemington on a day when it didn't actually start snowing until after the school day would have ended. Today, several people left work hours ago, even though even the snow still hasn't stuck to the roads at all.

"And they wonder," says my friend Jill, who raised five kids, "why American kids are going soft."

(Not to sound like some grizzled old crank, but along those same lines, a few weeks ago I was playing full-court basketball with some teenagers. An hour and a half into it, one of them said he didn't want to guard me because I was sweaty. Yes, sweaty. As in "sweat-equity" and "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration." Of course, sweaty is a problem at work, and sweaty is a problem when you want to hug your clean loved ones. I did not think sweat would ever be a problem in the gym.)