Catching Wolf
Blitzer on the Communist News Network reporting about the big storm hitting the
Northeast today brought back memories of other big storms I’ve experienced in
the ol’ Northeast. I tuned in to the
Weather Channel when I got home just to see what was going on. It looks like Massachusetts and Connecticut
have instituted travel bans, schools have already been closed for the next two
days, the shelves at the grocery stores are empty, and the storm hasn’t even
hit full force yet. Yikes! I remember similar times well; some memories were
fond, others not so much, and some were downright ridiculous. I was always a Weather
Channel watcher during the winter when I lived in New England, especially since
I had to go out and plow that stuff. Living in this part of Arizona we don’t get snow,
though we do have crazy dust storms and flash flooding and those have their own
special nightmare quality.
Seeing the
travel ban in Connecticut reminds me of the blizzard of ’78, which was the
first time I ever experienced a travel ban. The big storm hit only weeks after the Hartford
Civic Center roof collapsed due to accumulated snow. I had been there for a
Marshall Tucker concert a few days prior to the roof coming down; talk about
something that made your butthole pucker just thinking about it. For today’s
storm the authorities got out ahead of the worst of the storm with the travel
ban. Back in ’78 we were already ass deep to an elephant in snow by the time
the Gov said, “Hey everyone, stay home!”
Did a travel
ban stop me and my running buddies from going out and buzzing around town in my
silly little Pinto wagon? Nope! Armed
with a quart of brandy and other necessary supplies we spent a good part of the
first night of the ban driving around helping push people out of
snowbanks. Our typical reward being a
few beers for our trouble; of course we all needed more of those for the antifreeze
effect. Right. The night culminated at the park about a block from my house with
the last of brandy thunked into a snow bank, a toboggan and a big hill. I made
the mistake of sitting in the front on what turned out to be the last run. We
hit a bump, everyone’s weight shifted forward and my knee went pop! When I
tried to stand up to walk back up the hill my knee was having none of that and
I proceeded to collapse in a heap. My buddies loaded me on the toboggan and
fortunately the snow on the streets made the task for those drunken sled dogs
only slightly less aggravating than if they were clear. No doubt anyone that happened
to glance out their window wondered what that collection of knuckleheads was
doing out in that mess. Damn kids! I crawled
upstairs to bed when I got home and passed out. I was reminded of my previous evening’s
debauchery when I collapsed on the floor after I got out of bed the next morning.
A trip to the ER revealed torn cartilage and resulted in a few months of rehab.
It had to be the damn snow’s fault didn’t it?
In the mid 80’s
I was living in Richmond when we were hit with 3 good sized snowstorms back to
back around the first of the year. If any area was totally unprepared to handle
snow of that magnitude it was Richmond.
My street was never plowed during the storms and we were essentially
housebound for a few days. I tried digging for some old pictures of that storm;
alas, they have been gobbled up by the sands of time during my many moves. I
remember the snow being deeper than the tires on my little Subaru. It was an
interesting few days for sure; snowman, snow forts and snowball fights ensued. I
was out driving in the first storm and got behind a snowplow spreading sand, I
think that is what he was trying to do anyway. I was puttering down the road to
my house when I came up behind this plow truck weaving back and forth across
the road. He was driving very slowly, from one side of the road to the other
and I wondered what the hell he was doing until I got close enough. There was a
sander on the back of the truck that I guess was either broken or had been set
to only trickle sand out the back to save the city a few bucks. This guy was
sanding the road with about a 2” wide strip that intermittently drizzled from
the chute as he wove back and forth across the road. Jackson Pollack eat your
heart out, this was winter street art of an epic degree; he was leaving a nice
little brown ribbon that ran crisscross on the road. It was obvious that he or
someone else had done the same thing previously from the opposite direction. I
nearly wet myself laughing. The typical post storm occurrence in the Richmond area
happened over the next 5 days, as all the snow was gone after the temps went up
into the 50’s.
My last winter
in Connecticut before moving out to Arizona we almost hit century records for
snowfall that winter. That winter just didn’t want to let go and in March it
dumped over 2 feet of snow during a span of about 36 hours. I had planned a 4
day weekend. Silly me. The wet heavy snow just kept falling; I started to
wonder when it was going to stop. It was probably one of the toughest snow cleanups
I ever had. I plowed that mess in an old rot box GMC with a lousy heater and no
exhaust. I didn’t sleep that night and neither did anyone else in the
neighborhood while the storm howled in harmony with that old truck. By the time
I was finished, my legs felt like they weighed 400 pounds each after all the hours
I spent pushing the gas and the clutch. I can’t neglect to mention the untold
number of times I had to get out and clean frozen snow off the windshield due
to the crappy heater. I hired a handful of folks to help clear sidewalks and we
must have cleared everything at least 3 or 4 times to keep ahead of the snow
that just kept falling. I was running out of places to put snow by the time it
was over since we still had some big piles hanging around from previous storms.
I was never so glad to park that old truck. I don’t know who was more beat up
after that, me or the truck. I left for Arizona 3 months later.
Plowing snow
is not easy work, though it was probably my favorite winter sport; I was never
a skier or skater. I had a lot of fun doing it despite the weather conditions
and the physical demands. There were
many moments of hilarity that ensued when the plow truck hit the street.
Weather
predicting has been much better since the Blizzard of ’78, though everyone
still has to deal with the storm once it hits. My sincere hope is that anyone
in the path of this current storm can keep the lights on; the heat turned up,
and wrap their hands around a warm cup of something to help them ride out the
storm.
