I’m that dad with the trip planned with his son for this weekend. My brother lives in Moorhead, I live near Rochester. Every year on MLK weekend we meet up somewhere around the Brainerd area for some father and son ice fishing (we both have 11 year old sons). We always have the dates blocked on the calendar and we schedule the rental months in advance. I can tell you that when your 11 y/o has been looking forward to his “dad’s trip” for months; excitedly packing and help prepare and freeze food, going through gear, learning how to do something he was too little to do the year before, it’s heart wrenching to have to tell him it’s not going to happen. My boy was up at 530 this morning, too excited to sleep for the trip.
We are very fortunate that the owner of the rental we are staying at was flexible with us and allowed us to move our reservation to next weekend. We are both very fortunate to have jobs with flexible schedules as well. That means that we don’t have to choose between our one weekend away with just our boys and the risk of the weather. Not everyone is so lucky.
That said, I also want to rant a little about the weather forecast. I’m all for being safe, but the schools down here canceled class for today a full 18 hours before the snow even started to fall. The tornado sirens go off in the summer due to cloud rotation that “could” produce tornados. Part of my thinking this morning, right or wrong, was “can I believe the hype about the weather or is this just more hand wringing over something that MIGHT happen”. When it seems like every normal winter storm is suddenly a killer, I’m a lot less likely to believe there’s danger.
What I’m saying is, if I didn’t have the flexibility to change my plans for this weekend, I might have decided that the weatherman was just being a big sissy about it and have gone anyway. Not because I’m stupid but because my love for my son might have clouded my judgement.
Just my two cents.