Tramp! tramp! tramp! The boys are marching . . .

Some of my favorite memories of childhood are sitting at the coffee table in the living room, afternoons after school, working a jigsaw puzzle and listening to recordings of operettas and Broadway shows. Those lyrics come back to me, even now, at the oddest times.

Today I tutored at Fairlawn Elementary again, this time helping a sweet little third-grader with her health worksheet. My whole life I've thought I could never be a teacher, as I envisioned obstinate, disrespectful, willful children and couldn't imagine how I could get along with them and guide them without throwing my hands up in despair and running from the room. Oh, wait. That's me as a child whom I'm describing! The children with whom I've worked at Fairlawn are all just darlings: sweet children who are happy to get one-on-one attention from me.

As you know, we have received blanket upon blanket of snow almost since I arrived in Ohio. For an elementary school principal, that means day after day of children being blocked from playing on the playground and working out their excess energy.

When I arrived today, the principal had just made the brilliant decision to let the children march around the empty visitor parking lot during recess time. The kids would get fresh air, sunshine, and a break from staring at four walls.

It's a whole level of planning that one who has never lived around this much snow never imagines having to resort to.

I salute creative teachers and administrators who fall back and punt when the weather is uncooperative.