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School visitor
tragedy, snow days & more
By Susan Olling
We had quite a winter here in the D.C. environs.
All the schools used their allotted snow days fairly early. MoCo
schools used their three snow days by mid-February, including two in
January for mere dustings of snow. The school administration
seems to make its closure decisions based on what happens
up-county. Schools were closed again on March 2. No
precipitation was forecast for this third nor’easter. However,
the weather guessers were talking about how dangerous the winds were
going to be. Gusts over sixty-miles per hour and sustained winds
between thirty and fifty miles per hour were forecast. They were
right: some gusts were clocked at over seventy miles per hour. We
knew that schools would be closed. And they were.
There were many thousands of power outages from trees meeting utility
lines. One casualty was a three-hundred-year-old red oak that
blew over and blocked a street in our neighborhood. One of the
neighbors described the tree as “exploding” in her yard shortly after
10:00 a.m. Thankfully, no one was hurt. The local electric
utility sent a crew to assess the situation and noticed another large
tree, standing in the front yard of the oldest house in town, that was
moving at its base. A tree crew was called and removed the
tree. The street was blocked for five days as the tree crews and
utility crews did their jobs. It was fun to watch people panic as
they approached the “Road Closed” signs. They couldn’t drive
straight ahead and had no idea what to do. Right or left folks,
nothing to see here.
Nor’easter four blew in on March 20 and March 21. Yes, all the
schools were closed on March 21 due to snow. As were local,
state, and federal government offices. Which meant that the
memorials weren’t staffed and most of the Smithsonian museums were
closed. One of the local television stations ran a story about
school kids from Hawaii experiencing snow for the first time.
Nothing else going on, I guess. Gotta feel for the other
passengers on any plane that brings a school group to D.C.
Despite my apathy towards sports, my interest has been piqued by some
of the lower seeds in the NCAA tournament this time around.
The University of Maryland-Baltimore County was a nice surprise,
particularly since Turtle U. wasn’t in the tournament. Turtle U.
apparently looks down its nose at what they call the University of
Maryland-Back Up. Loyola-Chicago has been
entertaining. By the way, would someone please explain to
me why teams of female players are described as “Lady” this or
that? Putting “Lady” in front of a school’s nickname to
denote XX chromosome carriers is like fingernails on a
blackboard. It’s long past time to get rid of this antiquated
appellation.
The annual invasion of the school hordes is here, just in time for the
Weed Festival. Unfortunately, this year a school kid became a
statistic. A middle-schooler, visiting with his school group, was
hit by a tour bus near one of the Mall memorials. He died at
hospital. I feel for this kid’s family, but it was bound to
happen sooner or later.
Over the years we’ve seen more than our share of school kids, as well
as other tourists, becoming near-statistics because they’re jaywalking
or otherwise not paying attention to their surroundings. A
local tour guide wrote a wordy piece for the local fish wrapper about
all this a few days ago. He asserts that we’re all responsible
for keeping school kids who are visiting the Mall safe.
Sorry, sir, I respectfully disagree. I believe the chaperones
bear the first responsibility for their kids. Lay down the ground
rules early, and enforce them. Reinforce them if
necessary. Here’s a novel idea: when kids are
assigned to a chaperone, leash the kids to that chaperone. Might
prevent the urchins from going all over the place.
Talking of tourists, a travel website ranked D.C. as one of the top
travel destinations in the country. Number eleven out of
twenty-five, to be exact. People, people, D.C.’s grossly
overrated.
The March for Our Lives certainly lived up to its hype, if the front
page of the local fish wrapper was any indication. It’s too bad
that nobody was home in the big domed building on the hill to see the
mass of people on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. There were over
550,000 trips on Metro last Saturday. And no problems,
evidently. Not a day for anyone other than weed watchers or march
participants to be in the Metro system or anywhere near the Mall.
Note to weed watchers, due to the snow and cooler than normal
temperatures, the peak bloom for those dratted trees is now 08 April
through 15 April(near the end of the Weed Fest).
Despite the invasion of the school hordes, I’m planning to go to Mount
Vernon at the end of April for one of their special garden
programs. The distillery and gristmill will be opening for the
season later this week. They’re always interesting.
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