I had a Jeep, so it was assumed I was the woman for the job. I wasn’t. Nor did I want to be.
The blizzard was in full force and it would be impossible to dig my 1997 Wrangler out of the snow and drive through the unplowed streets to make it in time for a news conference with city officials on the Near West Side, I explained to my editor.
I didn’t even want to go outside, let alone go to the office that morning 13 years ago. The inclement weather led to the shutdown of the Cook County court system, including the criminal courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue, where I usually worked. But I felt guilty for turning down the last-minute assignment, so I changed out of my pajamas, determined to help my colleagues in any way I could.
I had no clue how I was going to get downtown. I just started trudging through the snow like a polar explorer without the dexterity or state-of-the-art gear. Then a Pace bus appeared and magically stopped right at my feet. “Is this a bus stop?” I asked incredulously as the automatic doors opened. “Baby, today everything is a bus stop,” the driver replied before asking me where I needed to be. Between the chauffeured bus ride and the CTA train, I made it to the newsroom in under three hours. Success. I felt like Rocky Balboa running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
That was then.
I dropped down to a lightweight watching the rain through our living room window Thursday morning. Had I planned to be physically in the office that day, I told my husband, I’d probably cite the wet weather as an excuse to stay home and work remotely.
I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Two months prior, my younger sister and I trekked to Ann Arbor for a niece’s college charity event, in spite of some dicey road conditions along the way. And here I was getting hypothetical cold feet over a moderate downpour. I blamed my Ramadan brain and fatigue, but I had to face it, I was wussing out even if it was just in theory.
In hindsight, my resolve to get to the Sun-Times at the start of 2011’s three-day “Snowmageddon” was a bit of a foolish self-imposed exercise. My work ethic didn’t need to be tested when more than 21 inches of snow was slung over the city, and DuSable Lake Shore Drive was left resembling the set of an apocalyptic thriller after dangerous driving conditions forced motorists to abandon their cars.
There’s less of an expectation for employees to put themselves in harm’s way these days when Mother Nature is feeling feisty, as a hybrid or full-time work-from-home model has become the norm for many people. Safety shouldn’t be an afterthought while making a living or attending school.
Sensible precautions, however, don’t excuse how some of us have grown a bit gun-shy to step out the door whenever the weather is slightly askew or is forecasted to be out of the ordinary.
Snow days may become obsolete with remote learning. Yet it appears, at least anecdotally, that many local school districts are quicker to cancel in-person classes over a potential snowstorm than they have in the past.
Then, when barely a two-inch dusting ends up blanketing the sidewalks and streets instead, the eyeballs start to roll.
Older generations itching to wave their fists with a “back in my day” speech should save the lectures, since plenty of them have used slightly erratic weather to justify canceling their own plans.
The human-caused climate crisis has resulted in topsy-turvy, unseasonable weather. But everything thrown our way we’ve seen before. We don’t have to hide and hibernate each time the temperature isn’t to our liking or the skies aren’t completely clear.
Gusts of wind, middling showers and snow shouldn’t scare us. This is Chicago, after all, the city with big shoulders, not slumped shoulders.
Rummana Hussain is a columnist and member of the Sun-Times Editorial Board.
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