Growing up in North Dakota was a blessing in disguise. No, I wasn’t a farm kid. I lived in the “big” city of Hillsboro (population 1200). I walked to school most days and if I cut across the railroad tracks, it was about six blocks from our house. If I walked around and crossed at the railroad crossing, it was about ten blocks.

Most days I cut across. At least until my Mother found out we were crawling under some abandoned railroad cars to get across. She was livid!! She told us never to do that again. Well, that lasted about two weeks.

Anyway, we did get a ride to school when it got colder than -20. My Dad would take off from work, pick us up at home and give us a ride to school. Otherwise, we were bundled to the max and walked. That’s just what we did. We had on the warmest clothes known to man at the time and the cold really didn’t bother us. We were dressed appropriately.

When I look at the Middle School students at recess, I’m thinking that they would have never survived as a kid in North Dakota. Some of our students do not wear coats at all. Some wear hooded sweatshirts that are meant to be worn on a 40/50 degree day with an accompanying sweater underneath.

Now, I do realize that we don’t have -20 degree weather very often in Iowa. I thawed out long ago!!! But, on those days when it gets really, really cold, brutally cold, our students need real, legitimate cold weather coats. Some students, mostly 5th and 6th graders, have awesome cold weather attire. They wear cozy jackets, hats and even gloves or mittens!! They are ready. Our older students, they are wearing the shirt they left home with that morning. Crazy!!!