Let’s go back in time.
Say, to 1984.
It is January and word gets out that a snow storm is headed to middle Tennessee. There is no app to track it, no twitter to talk about and no Facebook to really talk about it and get people upset.
Snow storm hits and it is not as bad as you hoped and now there is a chance that school will not be cancelled and life is really awful for you.
But wait, there is still hope. There is a chance that somehow, someway, enough snow got to some parts of Davidson county that school will be called off. This is why growing up, Joelton was the greatest city ever. If some of the roads up there were covered and impassable, then all of the county was out.
There was no question what to do then. Zero question. Everyone turned to the Snowbird report on channel 4 to see the famous weatherman, Bill Hall, announce whether you were going to school or staying home.
At that moment, Bill Hall, to us, was the most powerful man in the entire world. Entire universe. If Tom Brady did weather, he would be Bill Hall.
“Benton, Van Buren, Fentress, Lincoln,” he would go and name every county individually to tell us if they were staying or going. There was a “map” of middle Tennessee they would show and you would find your county, and I swear to this day I can identify every county in our area because of this, and see if it was gray or black with snow falling inside your county.
Gray, too bad, you’re going to school, but if if it was black with snow falling in that little county graphic, you were out and not even kryptonite was going to stop you. You would even get up at 5 A.M., without an alarm, to see if school was in or out if you didn’t find out at 10. (Spoiler alert-They always did it at 10 P.M. so no need to get up in the morning.)
When I say everyone watched, I really mean that everyone watched him give that Snowbird report. We would all call each other immediately afterwards just to make sure we heard it correctly. And Snowbird would sing, “No School, No School, No school!” Imagine Florida Georgia Line but much worse. Yes, I know, not possible.
I actually felt sorry for the rich private school kids because they would find out after us poor kids did and Bill would read all the schools from A to Z and that took forever. Hey, sometimes there are perks to living on the other side of the tracks.
Bill Hall was as much a part of my childhood as anyone in my family back then. If Bill Hall said it was going to snow, it was going to snow.
Here is hoping to 3 feet of snow soon. Just for old times sake.
And let’s bring back those graphics as well. Hey, what is old is new again so why not.
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