With this week’s winter weather. It has been a bit hard for this weather watcher to focus on the newspaper work he should be doing. Instead of working, I would have liked to have taken a position where I could watch people coping with the falling snow. And while sitting inside looking out, I would have my laptop computer near by so I could keep up with the latest weather reports being delivered via the internet.
When the snow started, one friend excitedly told me it was going to provide the first opportunity to use a Christmas gift.
Later in the morning, she reported she had been shoveling for 40 minutes and was giving up. She couldn’t get ahead of the snow. One and a half inches had fallen while she was out shoveling.
Another friend lamented that just last week he had given his snowblower away. Said he hadn’t used it in recent years and so gave it to a family member who has been getting snow more frequently in Omaha.
As a youngster, I looked forward to snow days. I liked hanging out in the gasoline station listening to the farmers swap stories. I would busy myself dusting shelves and merchandise but my real reason for being there was to have an opportunity to listen to the men’s weather reports. When not listening to the stories. I liked to help my mother bake cookies or go sledding in the pasture west of the station.
A winter snow day was one of the few times I wanted to live in town. The City of Superior closed selected streets to vehicle traffic and let youngsters turn the streets into sled runs. Another story published in this newspaper today, tells of what can happen when youngsters with sleds attempt to share the streets with motor vehicles.
I never got to fly down one of those closed streets but I expect it would have been a thrilling, high speed trip.
My dad did let me try my sled on Highway 14. With the highway’s steep decline to the river bottom. I expected to have a long walk back to the gasoline station.
The take off was good and I was gaining speed when I crossed the irrigation canal before my ride ended. I encountered salt and gravel the highway department had spread to help loaded trucks climb the hill. The sled stopped suddenly but I didn’t. Had I not been wearing layers of clothes I would have suffered road rash.
While the treated road surface stopped me, most every winter one or more semi-trucks became stalled while trying to climb the hill. Sometimes the trucks jackknifed and blocked the highway. I enjoyed watching the attempts to reopen the highway.
Dad built a toboggan which he pulled on nearby roads he referred to as township roads. Today they would be called minimum maintenance roads. They provided access to farm fields and pastures but did not have any occupied houses, had not been surfaced with rock or gravel and were among the last to be opened by the maintainer man.
It was lots of fun to get a group of friends together for an afternoon or evening of sledding which concluded with big mugs of hot chocolate with marshmallows.
Dad pulled us with his pickup or our family automobile. If there were several riders, we took turns riding and warming up in the tow vehicle. Deeper snow required the pickup with chains. Today the tow vehicle of choice would probably be an all-terrain vehicle.
One year we tried a modified version of cross-country skiing or perhaps it would be better described as hard water skiing. An old pair of skis was tied to our feet. The skier held a tow rope tied to tractor while being pulled across pasture and alfalfa fields.
My father helped with my last skiing adventure. It was his idea to use a ski attached to the front wheel of a small motorcycle. Rode that contraption all around Superior looking for youngsters playing in the snow.
This week schools were closed Monday and Tuesday. Youngsters were probably out playing in the snow, but I didn’t go out looking for youngsters. Instead I asked social media friends to share their snow stories. My plan was to share their stories on this page. I entered the following two before the stories and pictures started rolling in. So many good stories arrived that I didn’t have space for them here. After reading the first two which follow, look for the others elsewhere in this issue.
A schoolmate, Betty Butler posted on social media Monday morning:
“I know many of you are miserable on snow days, but I actually love them. They bring back childhood memories of sledding and ice-skating, building snow forts and in later years snowmobiling and cross-country skiing. Of spending days out-of-doors with my children. I like playing in the snow and watching it fall from the sky. I went skiing many times in Colorado and had such good times. Great memories.”
Denise Tietjen said, “I always made snow angels. If I did that now, I wouldn’t be able to get back up.”
Dale Kovanda said if I went outside I should walk like a penguin. But how does a penguin walk? I’ve only had one opportunity to observe live penguins and that was so long ago I don’t remember how they walked.
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