Winter (Blizzard '77 & '78) (Stories from the 70's Part IV).

"I Survived the Blizzard of 1978" T-Shirt for sale at a local antique shop.

      Two things I recall from being a seven year old in February of 1978.  One is waking up and having my Mum tell me I did not have to go to school that day, and two looking out the window in the pre-dawn darkness and seeing a blowing screen of white across the window.  I could literally see nothing but white.   I have never seen snow that intense before or after.  And this is someone who lived in Alaska for a few years following my military service.  

     It was snowing that bad and the wind was howling that bad that I could not see anything but white.  I guess you had to be there.  I still remember that image.  I think I ended up going back to bed?  That is my first memory of the infamous Blizzard of 1978 that blasted a big chunk of the United States during the time of President Carter at the helm and "James at 15" on the telly.  I have to admit that whilst I do remember the Blizzard of 1978 a lot, at the same time I don't recall a lot of the details.  I was seven and my scope of interest involved in being stoked that I did not have to go to school for that day and probably a day or two after that.  That is basically what I remember from a very historic part of time.  

    The day or two that I did not have to wake up, stand in the cold, get in the bus and sit at a desk at York Elementary School outside of Bellevue, Ohio, U.S. would segue into at least a week.  I think it might have been the better part of two weeks?  The details of that memory have been left in the 1970's.  Maybe is someone who went to school with me reads this, they can chime in with more details?  It really does not matter.  Because for a while in February of 1978 this seven year old was not going to school.  In February of 1978 in the region of the Untied States where I lived a lot of people were not going anywhere at all...for quite some time.  

    I recall my Dad not being around that morning.  I would not see him for about three days.  I think he got up for work and actually made it to where he worked at the N&W Railroad early in the morning before the whole scope of how things would work out were known.  He and his mates would spend the next few days there, sleeping on desks, etc.  He had been in The War and lived through the Great Depression as a child so this was not really a big deal, more of an annoyance.  Having said that there were people trapped in dire straights that did not make it out alive.  This blizzard was a killer!

    When the wind and snow died down the US Army and USAF National Guard were deployed to assist in digging out the world as we knew it.  My Dad finally got home sometime later.  Keep in mind this is a time when we had very much worse winters.  Winters today are downright laughable in comparison.  Also most people drove "normal" cars.  I don't recall many people having 4WD vehicles around a lot.  People had them, but they were a nitch thing with people who actually took them off-road, not someone who needed to get to the mall and was scared that there might be two inches of snow.  I recall my Dad driving a 1967 Dodge Coronet (WWII Veteran Special with slant-six engine and three on the tree manual transmission , four-door) at the time and I'm guessing it took some skilled driving to get home, even after the roads had been cleared in a rudamentary manor?

    My other memory of the Blizzard of 1978 involved walking into town with my Mum.  I don't recall it being too cold, but I do recall walking through an endless trench of snow that passed as a cleared sidewalk.  It might have been a mile or less into the middle of town, and it was a snow over my head the whole time (mind you I am a seven year old boy at this time, so it looked a lot worse in my perspective).

     It seems that the mid-late 1970's in the North-East part of the U.S. had a batch of bad winters in a row.  I don't recall how 1975-1976 was, but guessing it was not good?  Granted, if you were to take someone who did not experience what we did and throw them back in that time they would be horrified by what we thought was a "normal everyday winter".  We actually had snow that would stay on the ground for more than two days.  There was always snow when I was a child.  And I have to admit that I do miss that a bit, I'd love to go skiing again once in my life, but that is for another story.

   What I do recall about the winter of 1976-1977 is that we did have a bad blizzard that year as well.  At the time it was bad, but 1978 would blow it out of the water.  I recall my older Sister Sue was home from university for a bit and was sleeping on the couch.  Around 3am she was woken up by the sound of our cat throwing her body against the door to be let back in.  The cat stayed inside for quite some time after that.  She loved going outside, but that was on hiatus for a while.  I recall a lot of snow, but if I recall that winter was a lot colder that what 1978 would be.  We had a fireplace and living room type set up in the basement and recall staying down there a lot then.  

    We had a family friend who had a 4WD, Lee D. stopped by to see how things were with us.  That is about as much as I cal recall about the Blizzard of 1977.  I have to admit that after living in Alaska for a few years, other than being in -30 conditions and the whole lot, the winters of 1977 and 1978 in the Lower-48 seemed to be worse that what I recall from my Alaska days.  Weird...

    I think we were a tougher lot back then?  I got annoyed hearing people whine about the "cold" and have to laugh at "needing" an SUV to go out in snow that is two inches.  I recall going camping in -20 with Boy Scouts when I was 13, and had a two-wheel drive Ford Ranger when I lived in Alaska and got around just fine, for the most part.  Tire chains are a God-send!!!  I sort of miss winter, having said that I'm looking forward to going Scuba Diving this Summer!