Post by Tomspy77 on Mar 7, 2015 22:26:12 GMT -6
FOW FEB 2015
If your looking for something to be grateful for this month, this is the column for you. I swore I wasn’t going to do it this year, swore I would not write one of ‘these’ articles this Winter. They seemed like an easy way out of writing something fresh and also seemed a bit like whining as well.
Human instinct however drives me to type these words, as the air outside my window is a balmy five degrees. Five. Degrees.
And that is without the wind chill.
Great mounds of snow are strewn about all over from the historic storm we had here in the Chicago area earlier this month, obscuring paths and making it look like Godzilla and King Kong had a food fight with vanilla cake frosting.
Besides, I discovered an interesting fact, one that gave depth to the love and hate affair I have with Midwestern Winter weather. I was alive and experienced for four out of the top five blizzards in Chicago history.
The first I cannot recall and it should be of no great surprise because I was just slightly over a year old when Old Man Winter decided we needed just over twenty inches of snow on the 13th and 14th of January in 1979.
The second I recall a bit better is one January 1999, which rang in the last New year of the 20th century with more then twenty-one and a half inches of snow. I recall how bad it was getting to work for weeks afterward but not much else which is not surprising either as I had turned twenty-one not long before this storm occurred. If I have learned anything it is that most people, especially guys, don’t start to really think about stuff until they at least reach their thirties.
The third one, occurring on the first of February 2011, was much more memorable because I had an interesting view from work, which I wrote about for a blog chain a year or so after it happened:
“As the storm progressed the streets got worse no matter how many times the snow plows plowed the main street my store was located along, and eventually cars disappeared from the scene all together with the few brave (Or foolish) souls who had to venture out getting stuck out on the roads.
At the height of the storm I was sitting on two milk crates watching the sky glow purple with the rare phenomenon of thunder snow while observing anyone foolish enough to try to enter the shop’s lot, which had yet to be plowed even once (Probably due to them being stuck themselves elsewhere), getting stuck in the drifts that had accumulated on our entrance way.”
However, getting home that night was more dangerous then anything:
“When the cab arrived I opened the door, shutting it behind me and literally leaped into what was at least a three-foot drift just beyond the doorway, fighting the bitter wind that was whistling around my head as I made my way to the cab which was idling on the main street as it could not enter the lot nor come down the side street next to the store, which was also impassable.
I felt like I was one of those old Apollo astronauts you would see on the videos of the moon landings as every step seemed to be awkward, with the difference that instead of being weightless, I had to struggle against the weight of the accumulated powder that was now almost to my knees as I approached the street.
With a final leap from the untouched snow to the cab, I swung open the door and told the cab driver where to go, thanking him for being so prompt and also for working on a night like this. Beyond that, neither of us made any of the usual idle conversation as the driver had his full concentration on the road ahead, as did I.
Everywhere around us cars were either stuck or stalled out, and the cab driver would swing the cab cautiously to the farthest lane when we were passing a stuck motorist who was spinning his wheels in the snow to try to escape, lest he free himself and ram the cab. This seemed to be something that had already happened to others as in the three-mile journey, which took us about thirty minutes, we saw lots of cars that were entangled with other vehicles or trapped in snow.
When we finally got to the closest major roadway, about one street from my destination I instructed the cabbie to turn onto the main road as I did not want him to try to brave the side street my apartment was on and get himself stuck.
After assurances from me that this was fine, I paid the man fifty dollars for what usually was a twenty-dollar fare, the only time on my limited budget that I ever gave such a large tip, but the driver’s good driving skills and willingness to work in the middle of the blizzard made me very generous.
Exiting the cab I was once again faced with a terrible wind that seemed like something out a movie about the Alaskan tundra, the wind being augmented by the fact that I lived near an agricultural high school which had some open land which the winds and snow just blew across unimpeded.”
Here we are again, February and once again nature saw fit to let me witness nearly twenty inches of snow again bring one of America’s largest cities to a virtual standstill. The storm’s name was Linus, which seemed apt considering it seemed fond of ‘blankets,’ much like it’s Peanuts name sake. However this Linus liked blankets of snow and it made sure we knew it.
Now here is where you guys get to have some fun. Now that your done reading this go outside (most likely in a jacket that would be unsuitable here by late November) and bask in the warm sun of a Texas Winter.
I will wait, I will just sit here freezing and jealous, waiting for Spring.
Human instinct however drives me to type these words, as the air outside my window is a balmy five degrees. Five. Degrees.
And that is without the wind chill.
Great mounds of snow are strewn about all over from the historic storm we had here in the Chicago area earlier this month, obscuring paths and making it look like Godzilla and King Kong had a food fight with vanilla cake frosting.
Besides, I discovered an interesting fact, one that gave depth to the love and hate affair I have with Midwestern Winter weather. I was alive and experienced for four out of the top five blizzards in Chicago history.
The first I cannot recall and it should be of no great surprise because I was just slightly over a year old when Old Man Winter decided we needed just over twenty inches of snow on the 13th and 14th of January in 1979.
The second I recall a bit better is one January 1999, which rang in the last New year of the 20th century with more then twenty-one and a half inches of snow. I recall how bad it was getting to work for weeks afterward but not much else which is not surprising either as I had turned twenty-one not long before this storm occurred. If I have learned anything it is that most people, especially guys, don’t start to really think about stuff until they at least reach their thirties.
The third one, occurring on the first of February 2011, was much more memorable because I had an interesting view from work, which I wrote about for a blog chain a year or so after it happened:
“As the storm progressed the streets got worse no matter how many times the snow plows plowed the main street my store was located along, and eventually cars disappeared from the scene all together with the few brave (Or foolish) souls who had to venture out getting stuck out on the roads.
At the height of the storm I was sitting on two milk crates watching the sky glow purple with the rare phenomenon of thunder snow while observing anyone foolish enough to try to enter the shop’s lot, which had yet to be plowed even once (Probably due to them being stuck themselves elsewhere), getting stuck in the drifts that had accumulated on our entrance way.”
However, getting home that night was more dangerous then anything:
“When the cab arrived I opened the door, shutting it behind me and literally leaped into what was at least a three-foot drift just beyond the doorway, fighting the bitter wind that was whistling around my head as I made my way to the cab which was idling on the main street as it could not enter the lot nor come down the side street next to the store, which was also impassable.
I felt like I was one of those old Apollo astronauts you would see on the videos of the moon landings as every step seemed to be awkward, with the difference that instead of being weightless, I had to struggle against the weight of the accumulated powder that was now almost to my knees as I approached the street.
With a final leap from the untouched snow to the cab, I swung open the door and told the cab driver where to go, thanking him for being so prompt and also for working on a night like this. Beyond that, neither of us made any of the usual idle conversation as the driver had his full concentration on the road ahead, as did I.
Everywhere around us cars were either stuck or stalled out, and the cab driver would swing the cab cautiously to the farthest lane when we were passing a stuck motorist who was spinning his wheels in the snow to try to escape, lest he free himself and ram the cab. This seemed to be something that had already happened to others as in the three-mile journey, which took us about thirty minutes, we saw lots of cars that were entangled with other vehicles or trapped in snow.
When we finally got to the closest major roadway, about one street from my destination I instructed the cabbie to turn onto the main road as I did not want him to try to brave the side street my apartment was on and get himself stuck.
After assurances from me that this was fine, I paid the man fifty dollars for what usually was a twenty-dollar fare, the only time on my limited budget that I ever gave such a large tip, but the driver’s good driving skills and willingness to work in the middle of the blizzard made me very generous.
Exiting the cab I was once again faced with a terrible wind that seemed like something out a movie about the Alaskan tundra, the wind being augmented by the fact that I lived near an agricultural high school which had some open land which the winds and snow just blew across unimpeded.”
Here we are again, February and once again nature saw fit to let me witness nearly twenty inches of snow again bring one of America’s largest cities to a virtual standstill. The storm’s name was Linus, which seemed apt considering it seemed fond of ‘blankets,’ much like it’s Peanuts name sake. However this Linus liked blankets of snow and it made sure we knew it.
Now here is where you guys get to have some fun. Now that your done reading this go outside (most likely in a jacket that would be unsuitable here by late November) and bask in the warm sun of a Texas Winter.
I will wait, I will just sit here freezing and jealous, waiting for Spring.
You're very welcome btw.