Mind you, I’m not complaining, but the snow storm just nicked us on its way inland. It was even raining when I woke up, and my street was covered in slush and had two ruts running down it where some brave soul had driven his car. Right now we have a sprinkling of snow falling, and the sun has appeared a couple of times from behind the cloud where it has been hiding, but I doubt it will stay long. It’s really cold and a wind is blowing the branches and dead leaves. The birds are in abundance at the feeders. Goldfinches outnumber my faithful chickadees. They perch at the feeder and sway with the wind. The rain has pockmarked the snow leftover from the last storm. Today is winter at its ugliest.

Last night, most schools had already chosen to close today, and their names scrolled across the bottom of the TV screen. I used to love snow days, especially when I was a teacher. It always seemed a gift even though I knew I’d have to give it back in June. It was a day I could do anything I wanted. I’d stay in my comfy clothes, read, take a nap and eat junk food. Nothing enticed me to leave the warmth of hearth and home.

In Sunday’s crossword in the Boston Globe, one of the clues was a Bobbsey Twin. It was only three letters so I knew right away the answer was Nan, twin to Bert, but I wondered how many solvers had to work around it to fill in the answer. The Bobbsey Twins were a favorite read of mine when I was young. Freddie and Flossie, the other set of twins, were too young for me, but I easily identified with Nan.

You can still find The Bobbsey Twins. Amazon sells them, but they, like Nancy Drew, have been sanitized and modernized. The pony cart, which I envied, disappeared and was replaced by a car. Language was changed to reflect more of a frame of reference for today’s kids. The difficult to read and understand language spoken by Dinah, the cook, and Sam, her husband and the Bobbsey’s handy man, underwent the most changes, and I’m really sorry about that. Their language, rich in metaphors and colloquialisms, has become flat, the same as every other character in the book. They have lost their individuality.

I went through a few of my Bobbsey Twin books and found some Dinah speak. Maybe today’s kids would have trouble deciphering what she is saying, but I don’t remember ever having any problems understanding her. Maybe her language was too ethnic so it had to be rewritten to reflect today’s social standards. The Dinah and Sam I knew and loved are gone.

A sanitized version of Huck Finn will be released next month.