BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO ​

One of the cruel byproducts of spending 13 years in public school and another four — ahem, five — years in college is that I never stopped expecting summers off. And I never stopped getting giddy about snow days. 
Although I had wanted to become a teacher so I could continue that schedule, I instead became a journalist, which meant that dangerous weather and natural disasters caused me to spend more time at work, not less. 
I never did give up wishing for snow days, even when I lived where it didn’t snow. There’s just something so precious about being given the unexpected gift of a full day of free time. 
So forgive me if I condone a recent criminal act involving an unexpected snow day.

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO ​

I was working near the coast of North Carolina when a colleague named Aileen (no relation) was taking a trip down memory lane, to a snow-covered driveway in Michigan, where she had shoveled snow. 
Although I was only in my second Southern year, that kind of heavy snowfall already was a distant memory, like a fuzzy nightmare I couldn’t quite remember. So Aileen and I gloated about our luck, we two Midwestern expatriates, for not even owning snow shovels, for throwing away our scarves, and for being able to hang outdoor Christmas lights in short sleeves. Then we vowed never to take warm winters for granted and never to move any farther north than we already were.
Before you could say “best-laid plans” or “never say never” or any other I-told-you-so phrase, I was breaking out the snow boots in the Midwest, this time in Illinois, where co-workers had to endure plenty of winter whining from someone with now-thin blood, and where I again faced cold winters and driveways covered in snow. A few years after that, we moved from Illinois to Ohio — same snow, one day later.