I don’t remember how wide spread it was but the blizzard of January ’77 brought West Michigan to a standstill for two weeks. I taught biology at the high school and we bussed kids home early on Friday, January the 7th; didn’t resume classes again until Monday the 24th. We lived on a blacktop road a mile or so south of town. The house was good but old, poorly insulated with inadequate storm windows. The wind changed direction every other day while the temp hovered around zero during the day and plunged in the dark. Snow plows ran but the roads drifted closed again immediately. Driveways were buried by the snow plow and if you didn’t have a tractor or front-end loader there was no way out. One family followed the snow plow into town and got stuck there for the night as the road drifted in before they could finish their business. We burned fuel oil in the furnace and the delivery truck couldn’t deliver; naturally our 250 gallon tank was near empty. We also burned wood in an airtight stove in the family room but with subzero cold it took both to keep the water pipes from freezing.
After the first week I walked to town every day with a 5 gallon can, filled it at the fuel depot, carried it home and funneled it into the tank to be sure we wouldn’t run out in the night. Our car was buried in the driveway. Cabin fever took over so several times a day we bundled the kids up and took them outside for supervised play. Fifteen or twenty minutes and back inside but the diversion and the cold took the edge off. I have a photograph of my twin boys, age 6, standing on top of a huge drift which was actually their snow-covered swing-set.
From Kansas across through Indiana we have just hunkered down in a blizzard that took two and a half days to pummel us with subfreezing temps, high winds with freezing rain and snow. Most places measured 6” to 18” of snow over a layer of ice and many people who ventured out in it never got to where they were going. I got home on Friday just as the freezing rain began. This is Monday, the temp is forecast for 1 degree tonight but the snow and wind have moved on. I took it seriously, checked temperature in the garage and it stayed in the low 40’s while it was single digits outside.
Meteorologists and TV stations treated it as if the end times were here and rightly so; it doesn’t take many aggressive, over-confident, unskilled drivers to shut down the Interstate network. Today YouTube was saturated with jack-knifing semi trucks and helpless commuters sliding backwards or sideways on ice covered bridges and banked curves. But as blizzards go, this was maybe a 5 on a 10 scale. The slippery conditions are enough to keep me off the road but uneducated or indifferent drivers send me hiding under my bed. The teeth of the storm lasted about 48 hours at best and public works had been treating roads long before the freezing rain began.
I won’t criticize foolish people for their poor judgment, it has become a way of life. How many today would walk into town for a five gallon can of fuel to get their furnace through the night? Still I can’t help think about early settlers who wagon-trained and homesteaded here and on the plains in horse and wagon days. None of them had a town nearby or a five gallon can. Even more so we should admire those indigenous people who had survived and prospered on the North American plains for thousands of years. No permanent houses, no matches to start fires, no sharp, cutting tools, sleeping on the ground, under animal skins, in a tent; they had to function in blizzards as well. American Exceptionalism is an idea that feeds on modern technology and self-serving ambition. As awesome as we may be there is a dash of the evil stepmother’s arrogance, “Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is fairest of them all?” But good and evil come in the same package. I think exceptionalism should include those primitive people who prospered without a parachute, without investors or C.E.O.’s, before invading Spaniards brought horses to the great plains. For thousands of years they sustained a loosely organized network that was civilized. Their culture was not predicated on expansion and material wealth but they provided food for all, recognized leadership, demonstrated a spiritual investment and participated in a trade system with other nations.
It will be cold again tomorrow and the next day but the sun will shine. I’ll shovel enough to get the car out onto the street and see how the roads look. The weather got everyone’s attention but likely soon forgotten. I’m too old to be taken seriously. This is the day of podcast, ‘X’ and TikTok and no blizzard is going to change that. If someone were to scold me over a hint of sarcasm then I credit them for paying attention.
After the first week I walked to town every day with a 5 gallon can, filled it at the fuel depot, carried it home and funneled it into the tank to be sure we wouldn’t run out in the night. Our car was buried in the driveway. Cabin fever took over so several times a day we bundled the kids up and took them outside for supervised play. Fifteen or twenty minutes and back inside but the diversion and the cold took the edge off. I have a photograph of my twin boys, age 6, standing on top of a huge drift which was actually their snow-covered swing-set.
From Kansas across through Indiana we have just hunkered down in a blizzard that took two and a half days to pummel us with subfreezing temps, high winds with freezing rain and snow. Most places measured 6” to 18” of snow over a layer of ice and many people who ventured out in it never got to where they were going. I got home on Friday just as the freezing rain began. This is Monday, the temp is forecast for 1 degree tonight but the snow and wind have moved on. I took it seriously, checked temperature in the garage and it stayed in the low 40’s while it was single digits outside.
Meteorologists and TV stations treated it as if the end times were here and rightly so; it doesn’t take many aggressive, over-confident, unskilled drivers to shut down the Interstate network. Today YouTube was saturated with jack-knifing semi trucks and helpless commuters sliding backwards or sideways on ice covered bridges and banked curves. But as blizzards go, this was maybe a 5 on a 10 scale. The slippery conditions are enough to keep me off the road but uneducated or indifferent drivers send me hiding under my bed. The teeth of the storm lasted about 48 hours at best and public works had been treating roads long before the freezing rain began.
I won’t criticize foolish people for their poor judgment, it has become a way of life. How many today would walk into town for a five gallon can of fuel to get their furnace through the night? Still I can’t help think about early settlers who wagon-trained and homesteaded here and on the plains in horse and wagon days. None of them had a town nearby or a five gallon can. Even more so we should admire those indigenous people who had survived and prospered on the North American plains for thousands of years. No permanent houses, no matches to start fires, no sharp, cutting tools, sleeping on the ground, under animal skins, in a tent; they had to function in blizzards as well. American Exceptionalism is an idea that feeds on modern technology and self-serving ambition. As awesome as we may be there is a dash of the evil stepmother’s arrogance, “Mirror, mirror on the wall; who is fairest of them all?” But good and evil come in the same package. I think exceptionalism should include those primitive people who prospered without a parachute, without investors or C.E.O.’s, before invading Spaniards brought horses to the great plains. For thousands of years they sustained a loosely organized network that was civilized. Their culture was not predicated on expansion and material wealth but they provided food for all, recognized leadership, demonstrated a spiritual investment and participated in a trade system with other nations.
It will be cold again tomorrow and the next day but the sun will shine. I’ll shovel enough to get the car out onto the street and see how the roads look. The weather got everyone’s attention but likely soon forgotten. I’m too old to be taken seriously. This is the day of podcast, ‘X’ and TikTok and no blizzard is going to change that. If someone were to scold me over a hint of sarcasm then I credit them for paying attention.
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