The cold temperatures of late bring back memories of one particularly cold winter when I was in the eighth grade at Booth Junior High during the 1984-85 school year. I remember waking up one frigid January morning completely buried under the covers, head and all. I lifted my comforter an inch or two so I could shout to my parents: “Why’s it so cold???” I heard similar shouts coming from my brothers’ bedroom across the hall. The power had gone out during the night and school was canceled.
According to the National Weather Service, that January morning in 1985 was one of the harshest arctic outbreaks of the 20th century. Atlanta Hartsfield International Airport recorded a low of −8 °F that day. The morning the power went out, my best friend Kathy called the house. She implored me to come over to her house on Hip Pocket where she said it was “warm and toasty.” Apparently my father had just talked to her father about borrowing something (I can’t remember what) and was headed that way. I asked my father for a ride, telling him they had heat at their house. He assured me he had just talked to Kathy’s father, and he was 100% certain that they did not. “But she said it was ‘warm and toasty,’” I told him.
As soon as I burst through their front door I realized I’d been had. I ran up the stairs to Kathy’s bedroom and yelled, “It’s not ‘warm and toasty!’”
She said, “It is under the covers! Get in!”
I was annoyed, but she let me put my cold feet on her, so I gave her a pass. We spent the day doing what teenage girls did in 1985. We talked about music—Duran Duran, Prince, Madonna. We flipped through the latest issue of Teen Beat. We talked about the boys we liked. All while huddled under the covers on her bed.
Coincidentally, the second presidential inauguration of President Ronald Reagan was held in the United States Capitol Rotunda that same day due to the cold weather, the last inauguration to be held inside the Capitol until the second inauguration of Donald Trump.
I don’t remember how many weather related school closings there were during the 1984-85 school year, but there were enough for the school system to schedule a makeup day on a Saturday that spring. I remember the teachers telling us that no-shows would be recorded as unexcused absences. I was outraged. My parents, not so much. They made us go.
Now here we are again in 2025 with the polar vortex stretching southward once again. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. When I get home I’m going to put on my jammies, pull out my heavy blanket, heat up my rice sock for my feet, and snuggle on the couch with my dog and a good book. And then maybe—just maybe— I’ll give my old friend Kathy a call to reminisce about a “warm and toasty” January morning back in 1985.