Mike Walker, retired high school principal who resides in Holcomb - that's because Holcomb is centrally located between golf courses in Kennett, Malden, and Poplar Bluff - was in the office last Thursday. We were talking about the impending weather change from balmy 60-degree temperatures to where we are now and the possibility of snow.

By the way, have you noticed that usually weather forecasters tend to get real excited and predict much more dire weather conditions that we actually experience? That seems to be particularly true for the first couple of snow events that occur in the season.

Anyway, Mike has been lured out of retirement to drive a school bus. Mike regularly drove a bus when he was working so it was nothing new to him. Snow in the forecast is something he is all too familiar with as a school bus driver.

Most of the time superintendents tend to err on the safe side, but Mike recalled one experience when that decision was made in the same manner. Mike made his trip, getting in the bus at the school, ran his route and picked up the students. When he got back to the school the superintendent asked Mike if he had seen any slick spots on the roads.

"I told him, 'Only one, from the time I left here until the time I got back,'" Mike said. "About 10 o'clock they dismissed school and we took everybody home."

We started talking about "snow days" when we were in school. I honestly don't remember staying home from school because of snow.

The first six years of my schooling were spent in West Virginia. That state is also known as West "By God" Virginia to natives. My first year of school was in a one room school house in a little community called Walnut Gap. We had six grades in that one building. In fact, the Walnut Gap school building is still standing and is listed on the state historical register.

I can't imagine how Mrs. Fields managed to teach such a diverse group, but she managed handling the dual roles of principal and teacher. The following year the school was closed and we all moved to a bigger school where her husband was the principal.

There was no school bus running from the hollow I lived in to the school. We walked with the Brogan kids which included my good friend, Stanley. And that old adage about having to walk in the snow up hill "both ways" was at least partially true. Once you went down the hill most of the time it was necessary to walk up that same hill coming home. There were at least two large hills that we had to traverse getting to and from the school.

I recall snow ball fights at school and building snow forts. I recall sledding parties where we built huge bonfires to keep warm, roasting marshmallows and hotdogs, not at school, but on the weekends. I also recall the time Mrs. Fields fell asleep at lunch time when we went outside to play and the school got an extended lunch hour because no one wanted to go in and wake her up. I also recall a pot-bellied stove we used to heat the building. Air conditioning consisted of opening the windows along the back wall and standing the doors at each end of the building open.

What I don't recall is school being canceled because of there being too much of the white stuff on the ground.

I'm not saying schools were never canceled because of snow, I just don't recall that happening. It's entirely possible school did close for snow days. Roads into Walnut Gap were not paved. They wound up and over hills that make Crowley's Ridge look small.

Those dirt roads were also pretty narrow and I recall having to hug one side or the other whenever we met oncoming traffic. As a kid I usually wanted to be in the car going up the hill, because that was the car which got to take the hill side of the roadway and not have to look out over the side. I kept waiting for the road to fall away and we would tumble down the hill. Although, I never recall that having happened either. There were a few places where we actually couldn't pass and would have to back up a bit to find a wide spot in the road where two vehicles could pass.

When Walnut Gap School closed at the end of the school year we began attending school in a neighboring community. We had to walk - that's right, up hill both ways - to the bus stop. The bus stop was quite some distance from home, although from home to Walnut Gap school was at least a half mile and the Brogan kids walked even further than that because they lived on top of the hill in the next holler.

The school bus to our new school only came as far as the blacktop. I don't know how far we had to walk to that bus stop, but it was past Walnut Gap School. And yes, we were the last stop on the route.

Funny how snow days brought this little trip down memory lane to mind. Oh well, at least on this trip I didn't have to go up hill both ways.