Blizzards I’ve been through
The (now previous) break from shoveling snow on a nearly daily basis recently gave me time to think back to some of the wilder winter weather I’d experienced back in Ohio before we moved to Montana.
The blizzard of ‘78 found its way into the record books and onto the front pages of hundreds of midwest and eastern newspapers as the “Blizzard of the Century,” and Northwest Ohio was in the bullseye. Though the actual inches of snow that fell was in the mere teens, the frigid temperatures and whiteout conditions brought that corner of the Midwest to its knees. Drifts over 10 feet high barricaded people in their homes. Roads were impassable. Not even snowplows could punch through. Power was out across the region. In college, I was sharing an apartment above a Realtor’s office in Bowling Green. We collected snow in the 4-foot alley between our building and the next and melted it on the gas stove for water for almost a week. A couple days after the storm passed I ventured down Main Street to the small market where I was a part-time cashier. To my surprise it was open and there was a long line of people waiting to pay for their groceries. Of all the chain grocery stores in town, independent Center Market was the only one to open its doors in the days after the blizzard. I was enlisted immediately and for hours rang people up on a pocket calculator. Snowmobilers came to the store daily and filled up with groceries to drive out to the families who were trapped out on the country roads. Almost 45 years later, there’s no shortage of articles posted online about the Great Blizzard of ‘78.
The first apartment we lived in after we were married sat on top of the IGA store in the tiny town of Bloomdale, Ohio. The apartment’s rooms were all in a single file; the farther back you went, the colder it got. The bedroom was in the back and during one winter storm the water froze in my glass on the bedside table. Parking was on the street; it took an entire day to dig the car out of the drifts.
We moved to a small country house in Wayne. I managed a bookstore in a small town about 40 minutes away and would commute in one the two VW bugs we owned. One of the most naive driving feats I’ve ever executed was passing a snowplow. This was, mind you, years before there were ever signs posted (at least on country roads) warning drivers not to do that. But the Super Beetle, being rear-wheel drive and bearing the weight of its engine on the rear wheels, just handled so well in snow. I don’t recall at the time that I thought it was an ill-planned maneuver. I just passed, with care, and continued on my way home.
There was one particularly hairy trip home from the bookstore. The weather was rapidly deteriorating so the mall closed early and I headed for home, choosing a slightly longer route on a more traveled road part of the way. In whiteout conditions I made it to the town of Risingsun about 5 miles from home and stopped in a store to ask if anyone knew the condition of the road ahead. An old farmer said, “Just go slow and you’ll make it.”
Well, not exactly.
A mile or two down the road I plowed right into a snowdrift spanning both lanes, completely invisible due to the blowing snow. I tried honking my horn hoping someone would hear it, but when I poked my head outside the window I realized it was louder in the car than outside. I then started counting the seconds from the time I could see the next telephone pole up the road until the blowing snow obliterated it, while considering walking to the next farmhouse. Thankfully, before too long a pick up of teenagers pulled up and were able to pull me out of the drift. I limped home, the car unable to top 10 miles per hour. The next day when we opened the trunk — in the front of the Super Beetle — it was packed with snow, which had proven very effective at muffling my horn.
Community editor Carol Marino may be reached at 406-758-4440 or community@dailyinterlake.com.