I wish I was a kid again

[Kimbabig]

I want to go out and play in all that snow. Not that anything is stopping me now, but I miss when the snowdrifts were taller than me. any childhood snow stories you guys would care to share?

[DAS44]

I've always been fond of going for walks in blizzards between 1 and 3 am, its so peaceful and the snow hasn't been disturbed yet. Other than that my only snow memories, shoveling.

[Versatile]

This may help......

 

Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!

 

Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin.....

 

V

[Silenced Fred]

I've been spending most of my morning shoveling the snow. Not too much fun

 

Probably have to go out for a walk with my friends and I'm going to be taking some pictures

[DB Cooper]

After the Blizzard of '78, we had 5-6 foot drifts along the tall hedge row in my rural front yard. My buddy and I spent the day tunneling in. We each built our own tunnel fort (maybe 15" high, but spacious)...then connected them with a connecting tube, which we could just wiggle our skinny little bodies through.

 

The next day the weight of the snow had sunk the snow to the point where we couldn't get in our forts anymore.

 

In hindsight, it was all probably incredibly dangerous...but what did we know?

 

~DB

[Steven Tari]

I was with the second wave of guys and ladies, for a migration to the north in "94", to start a rebuilding of a shipyard in Chester Pa.. I think we got to Dover and got stuck with a bunch of other shops. We got hit with the front of the blizzerd that froze all the roads to Pa. or as a matter of fact all of the Easteren states. It took us 6 hours from Dover to Chester. It was a slow driveing night.

One night as I was on my 12 hour watch. It started snowing really heavy. I had left the small trailer park to blow down the boiler and check the fire and potable water pumps. I was coming from the bank of the river to the front gate that it started snowing so hard that I lost all sight of the lights around the front gate. I freaked and called the guard to start yelling out of the guard shack door to guide me in his direction.after about a minute I heard him over the wind and found my way there by his yelling. After that night the lordie got my snow bound attention. Thats my best snow memory.

[BigKahune]

Midwest blizzard of 1967. . . . . . . . . . aka Chicago blizzard of 1967

 

Over 2 feet of snowfall. High winds; drifts 8+ feet. 77 deaths. We had to dig down to unbury cars. No school for three days - took that long to get all the roads plowed.

 

[TommyK]

Heavy snow of '66 or '67 made a drift on the lee side of the old wash house that reached the eaves at about 12'. We made a cave and tunnel into it. I only got to enjoy it for a couple days when I came down with something and had to stay in the house for a week. I would watch my sisters, with great envy, as they continued to play as I was stuck inside.

 

The most snow I ever shoveled was 2". Back in the late 70's I was growing up on a farm in central Illinois. We had received 2" of snow, but with 2 -3 days of horrendous wind. You could look out into the fields and see absolutely no snow. All the snow was drifted into our farm stead. On the first day we went out to do, what normally was 1 hour of chores, feed the livestock. The chore tractor was buried inside a 12' drift. We carried feed by hand through the huge snow drifts. We had the sows who had new litters in buildings that were quite warm and snug, but we let them out to exercise daily, then we fed them in the shed. We had to dig down 3' to get into the top door to feed the sows. There was no getting them outside that day.

 

We had a bunch of sows out on pasture which holed up in a shed, open on one side. Normally, this was quite confortable for them, We usually fed them on a concrete pad at the end of the pasture. But this day we carried it out to them. There was no coaxing them out. We saw a terrible sight. These sows were due to give birth in a week, but due to the weather front, I guess, they had farrowed early. We had no way of moving them due to the extreme amount of snow.

None of the piglets survived. We lost 9 or 10 litters that day.

 

We started chores at day break and finished up about 1 p.m. After all that hand carrying of feed and shoveling snow, we were whipped!

 

The second day we were able to get the chore tractor, with bucket loader out. We were able to move more snow to make feeding the animals easier. We even got out of our 1/8 mile long lane. The roads were bare, so we decided to head to town. We got to the main high way. It was clear, except for a 100' x 20' drift caused by a corn crib in close proximity to the road.

 

The third day, was pretty much like the second. We were however, able to get enough snow moved to let sows out to exercise. We even treated ourselves to a sled ride. Dad pulled us behind a tractor down to our great aunt and uncle's. We played board games and cards for hours. Mom and my great aunt cooked up a storm.

 

On day four we saw one of the state's huge snow blowers working on that big drift out at the highway. "Great!" my mom said we can get milk.

 

When we got to town, of about 2000 souls, we discovered there were only 2 drifts keeping us from getting there. These were so large, however, it took heavy equipment to move. We heard the State had only two of these big snow blowers and we just had to wait our turn. These two drifts also kept delivery trucks away too. The grocery store had no milk and very little else, the shelves were mostly bare, save for bread and cheeze. The little town had a contract bakery which made bread for Wonder and a cheeze factory. These two small business kept the town fed for 4 days until the grocery's provisioner could get there to restock shelves. Mom said, "We can do without," and left empty handed. We had a veritable cornucopia in our basement to sustain us for a month. We would just do without milk.

 

It's amazing how quickly we could be hungry if commerce comes to a stand still. It is also amazing how unprepared most people in modern society are for such disasters.