We’re in the beginning stage of an ice storm that will get worse tonight and continue through tomorrow. I’m just hoping we don’t lose power. Our house is electric everything and I’m not looking forward to a cold, dark house.

Fayetteville Schools are closed tomorrow. The email came a couple hours ago. Rob, my 13-year-old, was thrilled.

I can’t help thinking back to when I was 13 and hoping for schools to be closed. Of course there was no internet or email to let us know. I would wake-up early, tune the radio to WOBM or WJLK (both on the central New Jersey coast) and hope to hear those magical words, “Brick Township Public Schools closed.”

It wouldn’t take me long to get dressed, pull on my boots, get my sled from the garage and head down the hill we lived on. My friends and I would spend the day riding our sleds until the guy in the sanding truck would come by and ruin everything.

When I was a little older, my dad became the Business Administrator for the school district, so it was part of his job to recommend school closings to the superintendant. That gave me the inside track on school closings. Kinda like my own personal email.

A night like this makes me think of my dad. He’s been gone for almost four years now.