Snow days

I was looking out of my dining room window at the snow swirling sideways last Wednesday morning when I remembered what an important job my brother Jimmy Jr. had back in the 1960s and ‘70s.

He was the man who could close Henrico County schools.

Jimmy was by then Director of Construction and Maintenance for Henrico public schools. When snow was falling he’d brave the weather and drive the roads of the county -- which was much more rural then -- to determine whether school buses would be able to make their runs safely.

I talked to Jimmy’s daughter, my niece Terry Dale Cavet, this morning about what it was like to live with such an important personage. Ironically, Jimmy lived in the city, in what is now the near West End, and his decisions didn’t affect Terry, who was a teenager attending Albert Hill Middle School in Richmond.

“In those days, he was much more conservative than they are today. He’d only close the schools if there was an absolutely obvious danger,” she told me.

“Might be,” she said, “was not a good enough reason.” He would, however, keep a close eye also on what other local school jurisdictions were doing.

Those test drives of the Henrico county roads mostly happened when it was snowing late at night, just before Jimmy went to bed, although sometimes snow would begin to fall overnight and he’d have to get up to make his test drives very early in the morning.

Jimmy was well-qualified to make the decision. He had a degree in building construction from VPI and a master’s in education from U.Va.

And he had a driver’s license and a car.

Terry lobbied hard for Henrico students, even though she lived in the city. She pleaded with her father to shut down the schools on those occasions when the decision might go one way or the other. I doubt that he took her requests for a school-free “snow day” in Henrico into account.

Jimmy stayed on the job for Henrico schools, making those hard calls, until the day he died, at age 48.

Terry reminded me that when Jimmy died, the county school system flew its flags at half-staff. That was in late October of 1974. On the day he was buried, the high temperature was 82 degrees, and it did not snow.