By Steve Templeton at Brownstone dot org.

Every year for the last four years, around the second Saturday in November, my daughter (now ten) has her first gymnastics meet of the season in Bloomington, Indiana, about an hour-and-a-half drive from our house.

In 2022, we left early, while it was still dark, to make it on time for an early start for her level 2 competition. Surprisingly, it had started snowing an hour or so earlier, and there was already a dusting of snow on the lawns, houses, cars, and streets of our neighborhood. It doesn't regularly snow in mid-November in central/southern Indiana, so even a light snow was unusual that time of year.

However, as we drove south towards Bloomington, the snow intensified. In some places, visibility was difficult and traffic slow along the two-lane route. Ice built up on the wipers, and as a result they didn't clear the snow off the windshield as effectively, making visibility worse.

Nonetheless, we persisted, and made it to the gym in Bloomington on time, with around four inches of snow on the ground locally. I didn't think the accomplishment remarkable, as I've driven in snow before, and although it requires more concentration and patience, it wasn't impossible in those conditions. But I was very curious to see how many other families with gymnasts were willing to take the risk to drive an hour and a half in moderate/heavy snow for the event, and how many decided it wasn't worth it, or even turned back.

As we entered the gym, and my daughter began her warmups with her team, I soon had my answer—not one other gymnast on her team was absent, or even late. All were present.

In the normal, sane world of my childhood, this wouldn't have been extraordinary. But this was November, 2022, and the world was just beginning to recover from the insanity of the Covid-19 response. People in the US had endured harmful lockdowns, restrictions, and mandates, and healthy children were targeted despite the almost non-existent risks SARS-CoV-2 posed to their health. Were people done with all the safetyism and harmful, non-science based, virtue-signaling theatrics of the past two years? I was at once hopeful.

Fast forward to another morning later that winter. It had snowed overnight, maybe an inch and a half. At 5 am, we got numerous automated emails, calls, and texts (just to be sure) from the school district administration—school was cancelled. The excuse for the district wide snow day was "some outlying roads are slick and dangerous."

We live near the center of town. Our daughters' school was less than ten minutes from our house. In fact, almost any school in our district wasn't more than twenty minutes from our house. Going to work that day, even at 8am, it was obvious the local roads were fine. Two hours later, they were dry. Not even remotely as difficult as the 1 1/2 hour drive to Bloomington we had done in November.

Upon perusing local social media posts, my wife and I observed much posturing in parents and teachers defending the district's decision. Any complaint about the lack of concern for working parents schedules and disruptions to learning was met with the tried and true paeans to safety that had been leveled at any rational person for the last two years. "We just want everyone to be safe!" "What happens if a child is hurt on the way to school?" "The school could get sued." "Just because you aren't concerned doesn't mean other parents shouldn't be." Etc, etc. A few more reasonable people made the point that not all the roads were clear, and some places outside of town were worse.

Fair enough. It's fine to give accommodations for people that live out of town on farm roads that never get plowed, and sometimes the city does a lousy job of plowing roads. I'm fine with that. That's no different than what happened when I was kid. My house was located at the bottom of a very steep hill. Some snowy mornings, there was no getting up that hill in our rear-wheel drive, gas-guzzling 80s sedan. So ...