“When I was a kid, I had to walk uphill 30 miles to school, in the rain, sleet and even SNOW.”

We’ve all heard this classic complaint at least once from some sort of elder in our lives.

I always used to have the attitude of, “Well, it sucks to be you!”

But Thursday night, as I sat at a friend’s house and caught a glimpse of the evening news with a scrolling list of school closings at the bottom of the screen, I found myself channeling my inner octogenarian.

“When I was a kid, snow days were a lot different,” I moaned.

Don’t throw me in the old folks’ home or give me a coupon for Werther’s Original candies just yet (although, I do love that 65 cent coffee at McDonalds).

Let me explain myself.

When I was a kid, it took more than a few inches to cancel school.

When we were young, snow days were a precious commodity, saved for days when there was enough snow piled on your car to build a snowman the size of Kwame Kilpatrick.

Last Friday’s snowstorm only dumped a maximum of five inches on the Motor City and its surrounding areas.

Doesn’t that seem like a small amount for a city and state which is known for its unpredictable and brutal winters?

After all, according to visitdetroit.com, our area gets an average of about 41 inches of snow every year. That’s deeper than the shallow end of most swimming pools.

It seems a bit cowardly to call school off with so little snow.

That never would have happened in our time.

When I was a kid, you had to wait until the morning to see if you still had school.

I remember waking up to go to the bathroom extra early in the morning and peeking out the window to witness a sea of white.

Tens-of-inches of snow covered the bushes and the patio.

You see, that was part of the joy of a snow day — the surprise it brought in the morning.

I’d then go back to my bedroom, keeping my fingers crossed until my mom or dad came in and whispered that I could stay in bed.

Then joy and adrenaline would rush through my body, like the feeling you got when you opened that one present that you were really hoping for at Christmas (in my case, Nintendo 64).

But today’s kids don’t get that excitement because school administrations seem to be calling school the minute they see a snowflake on Chuck Gaidica’s weather map.

That’s the problem with school officials these days. They’re putting faith in the only people on television news you shouldn’t trust: Weathermen.

How many times this winter have we heard of a huge storm coming our way that never materialized or only left a slight dusting on the ground?

At the same time, it seems every big storm we’ve had this year has appeared under the radar — be it Doppler, Stormtracker or otherwise.

When I was a kid, there actually had to be snow on the ground before school got cancelled.

When we were growing up, it seemed like everyone understood that meteorologists were just like Miss Cleo without the cheesy commercials (although some of the local news weather promos could compare pretty well with those “Call Me Naw” commercials).

Today, the people who are cancelling school seem to think that weathermen are omnipotent: if they think there’s going to be a storm, then gosh darn it, there will be one!

That’s why when I flipped through the news Thursday night there was already a tremendous list of schools closed at 10 p.m., when the snow didn’t even start until around 2 a.m. Friday morning.

That’s exactly the kind of thinking that gets schools closed THE AFTERNOON before a storm.

Kids know at school the day before they have a snow day.

I think that only happened once during my childhood and that was because it was already snowing pretty hard.

When I was a kid, I hoped I’d never reminisce about the hard times later in life like so many older people had done to me because I didn’t want to sound like a grandpa.

But hand me my walker and turn me on some Matlock. I just can’t help myself when it comes to snow days.