A child's memory is imperfect and that's part of the learning process. We see, we hear, and we learn. Years later we remember something that didn't make sense at the time and it sometimes you realize truths that didn't make sense.
My life as a child was simple. The area where I grew up was a farming community built around a granary railroad stop. To a child's eyes, the fields of corn surrounding the town created an oasis, a bubble. The town numbered about 400 people but it had a long proud history. We had a grocery store, a hardware store, a gas station, a library, and two churches.
Every holiday the town gathered around the town hall in celebration. My personal favorite was Memorial Day where after a few boring words from the mayor, we all walked to the town's cemetery where every family visited their ancestors and shared their stories. Us kids pretended to care as we placed flags on all the graves. Most of our minds were already fixated on the free ice cream bar the town grocery would give once this task was completed.
My hometown was perfect to a child's eyes. I lived three blocks from the school which might be a long distance in a place like New York City but blocks in my hometown consisted of four houses built in a square. I could leave my house three minutes before the school bell rung and still get to class on time.
Like I said. Perfect.
One of the other great things about growing up in a farming community was the snow days. Because of the size of the farms, our town's school buses had to travel for many miles through all sorts of terrain. Most of the area had once been heavily wooded but many of the trees had been cut down so farmers could plant more corn. Poor roads and snowdrifts meant getting to the farmer's kids was impossible so my school was always always the first to close. The kids who lived in the town met at the school to play.
Perfect.
Our school wasn't big. My 4th grade class had 28 students. My brother's class had 20 students with 18 of them boys. The odds of this happening is about 1 in 100 but I'm sure this type of gender disparity wasn't totally uncommon for schools like ours with small sample sizes. Either way, neither I'm sure neither girl had a problem getting a date for the prom.
Many of the people who lived in town did so because they provided services for the surrounding farms. My maternal great-grandfather first moved to the town to find work as a for-hire farmer laborer and did this for most of his life. My maternal grandfather had bigger dreams, eventually buying a milk truck and made a living delivering milk to a dairy processing plant in nearby Columbus. Each generation found their own way to fit into the town's social structure but the times were changing.
By the 1970s the farming business wasn't the same as it had been twenty years earlier. Agribusiness, mechanization, and consolidation were in full force meaning most of the people that could once find steady work were now headed for factory or office jobs in the city.
That's what my Mom did, finding work at a small accounting office just west of downtown Columbus. My Mom and Dad had gotten a divorce a few years earlier and money was tight though my brother, sister, and I didn't notice. We always had food on the table and clothes on our backs. As far as we were concerned, life couldn't be better. After all, my hometown was perfect.
The winter of 1977 was cold. Most of the winters of that decade were colder than we see today but it has little to do with climate change. The winters of the decade were colder than Ohio had seen in many decades for reasons I don't understand. All I knew was even with my short walk, I needed wear mittens or I wouldn't be able to feel my hands by the time I got into school.
In January of 1977 there were 26 straight days of below zero temperature. The three days of January 16-18 hit 20 below zero. Us kids were both excited and sad because while our school closed it was much too cold to play outside and too cold to visit a friend's house. We didn't have Playstations back then so my brother, sister, and I had to make do with games like Monopoly while we tried to stay warm.
Staying warm was a problem for most of the Midwest that year. The constant cold temperatures meant the usage of natural gas was at an all time high, far beyond the amount the utility company was able to procure. They started sending out warnings of outages the last week of January and that's when the blizzard of 1977 hit.
It's at this point I must restate that a child's mind is imperfect and I'm telling this story from a child's point of view. I was nine years old when the blizzard hit in January of 1977. When people talk about Ohio blizzards of the 1970s most people assume you are talking about the 1978 blizzard and I'll get to that eventually. It was the 1977 blizzard that first pierced my childhood veil of perfection but my recall isn't perfect. Over the years both storms have blended in my memory so it is hard separate them.
Most employers don't have much sympathy when it comes to being at work on time. Most of them give four unplanned sick days sick and two weeks of scheduled vacation. Anyone who misses too much time can expect to find themselves on that unemployment time in the near future.
That's the situation my Mom faced the last week in January of 1977. She didn't make a lot of money and while the conditions were worsening, she had to go to work. I don't remember her leaving but I'm sure she gave each of us a kiss and gave the baby sitter instructions.
The roads were treacherous, the street crews had put down a mix of salt and water in hopes of clearing the streets but that mixture doesn't work when the temperature is below freezing. Instead, the streets had turned to ice.
I don't remember the blizzard exactly, I only remember the aftermath. I know my Mom had trouble getting home. Our county was declared a disaster area. Our town was declared the worst of them all. I'm think my Mom got stuck at a friend's house in the city for a couple of days while the county cleared the roads. I do know it took weeks for the snow plows to get the icy mess off our roads.
A couple days later we went to school a few days later to find another disaster had occurred.
The natural gas company had run out of gas during the storm and many large buildings throughout the state had been unable to stay warm. Our school was one of them and during the freeze some of the buildings pipes had burst and flooded. To this day, I'm still not exactly sure what happened, all I know for sure is the room was really cold as the teacher handed us folder with a long list of homework. We weren't in the school for more than an hour before we were sent home. School wouldn't be back in session for another month.
The celebrations by all the students were immense as we left the school. We'd been given early summer vacation and few of us thought about the bigger implications. How would we do our homework if we didn't have a teacher? Most of our parents worked all day and we'd be left on our own devices.
In the wake of years-long pandemics these concerns may seem quaint but back then we had no ability to meet with our teachers over the internet. One good thing was our school wasn't the only one affected. Columbus City Schools also had closed some of its schools and came up with a solution using Public TV.
Most mornings PBS ran shows like Sesame Street and the Electric Company. In February of 1977 the kids of Central Ohio were expected to watch PBS where teachers from various grades put on lessons in various subjects. It was an idea ahead of its time and a bit of an over reach.
There weren't enough babysitters in town for all us kids so many of us were sent to a lady who lived in a house next to the church. The first day she sat us down to watch PBS but the problems became clear right away. First of all, each grade was only given an hour of TV time and this was an era before VCRs. If you missed the show, you missed it. Even if you did happen to see your show, the homework we'd been given usually had nothing to do with the stuff they were discussing on the TV. The teachers of Columbus created lesson plans for the students of Columbus, not my hometown.
Every day the lady sat us down to watch PBS. Every day we watched and grew more frustrated. It didn't take long for us to sneak outside to go play. I like to think I made it longer than most. I do remember her futile complaints but we outnumbered her and it didn't take long until she gave up. Her one defiance was to keep her TV tuned to PBS all day as a constant reminder that we should be studying.
Of course we weren't in the house very often. A good friend of mine became a hero when said he found a new sledding hill near the cemetery. It took the better part of a day to clear all the brush. It only took a single run to find agreement we'd created the best sledding hill in town.
It had only been a few years earlier that I'd gotten my red Flexible Flyer sled. In previous years, it proved to be inconvenient as the metal runners dug too deep in shallow snow, grabbing the ground instead of sliding easy like a flatter toboggan sled. That wasn't a problem in the January of 1977 and everyone wanted a turn on my speedy sled. We spent much of the next month on that hill.
And yet it was still cold. Not as cold as January but still cold enough that we had to return to the babysitters house where PBS channel was still running. If you've ever watched PBS you will remember the little ditty at the end of every show. It's not a very catchy jingle but it is distinctive to PBS and they run it to this day. To this day, hearing it gives me a sense of dread.
The weeks passed by and my homework sat unfinished. It wasn't until a week before we were supposed to go back to school that I picked up the folder full of homework. I did my best to fill out a couple of pages but most of it didn't make sense without guidance. I returned to school knowing myself to be a complete failure.
I knew most of my friends hadn't done their homework either but I saw the girl next to me had cursive writing on every single page. I asked her if she'd gotten her answers by watching PBS and she laughed as she said no. It eventually dawned on me that the only kids that did their homework were the ones who lived on a farm. They had no way to come to town to play with the rest of us.
The teacher took our homework and put it in a big brown box. I worried every day for a couple of weeks about how much trouble I'd be in when she finally got to mine. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and I asked her about it after class once day. She smiled and said not to worry. That night, I got my first restful sleep in a month.
I later figured out the teacher knew we wouldn't do the homework. The school didn't have the money to extend classes a month into the summer. The brown box of unfinished homework was the school's proof we'd been learning while the school was closed. It was a secret between us kids and our teachers.
A couple months later a furor rose in town about some grave placards that had been defiled. The deep snow had hidden them from view during our February excursions but the spring thaw showed extensive damage, some of which that looked like the ruts of a sled. My family was interred on the other side of the graveyard but that didn't stop my grandmother from stating aloud what she'd do if she ever caught the culprits. She never found out one of the main ones was within arms reach.
The Blizzard of 1977 passed from memory quicker than expected. While the month of January 1977 had the most snow ever recorded in town history the record would only last a year.
*****
The winter of 1978 started out much milder than 1977. It was warmer for most of the month but that warmth brought moisture from the south. On some days it was warm enough to turn into icy rain and which meant crews put down a mix of salt and water to clear the roads. This works well when temperatures are near freezing. They didn't know what was coming.
Most weather forecasters didn't predict the severity of the Blizzard of 1978. The accounting firm where my Mom worked was in a time crunch to produce W-2s by the end of the month so she stayed in Columbus and got us a babysitter to stay with us Tuesday evening, January 24th.
The next morning, January 25th, a water-laden storm from the gulf pressed north into the Ohio Valley and met a low pressure system heading south from the Arctic. It created the 3rd lowest barometric reading ever recorded in North America. The two met somewhere in Ohio and it felt like it it was directly over my house.
Central Ohio had already received about 20 inches of snow in January and over the next few days we'd get another two feet. It was impossible to know how much snow an area received because no one could go outside in the 50-70 mile per hour wind gusts.
As the rain turned cold and the winds started to blow, memories of a year earlier returned but it was clear this storm was more intense than the previous storm. Icy power lines meant we lost power early in the storm. I'm pretty sure the phone lines still worked because we got a call from my Mom at some point that morning.
As you might imagine the baby sitter was freaking out. She was fifteen years old at most and responsible for taking care of three kids in the middle of a natural disaster. Her Mom agreed to take us in but the problem was getting there. My brother had spent the morning in bed with the flu and wasn't in great shape to travel.
I've always had an inventive mind though admittedly some of them seem ridiculous in hindsight. It was my idea to strap my brother to my sled and pull him through the blizzard. My babysitter wasn't in a position to argue. She had long since passed the point of coherent thought as she just wanted to go home.
The neighbor lived two blocks away though it was on the exact opposite end meaning we'd have to go up one street and down another. As we didn't have any idea how long we'd be gone we didn't want to leave empty handed. I think my sister grabbed a board game. I'm sure I grabbed something too. My brother didn't.
I have to admit I was excited when we opened the door to go into the storm. It seemed fun until the cold wind hit me in the face. I used a rope to tie my sled to me and then tied my brother on the sled. Some of the drifts in the front yard were taller than both of us but we found a place where we could pass. It was only when I got to the open area on the street that I realized just how hard the wind was blowing. I put my head down and pulled as hard as I could but a strong gust of wind flipped my brother over on his side.
I don't think he'd ever really liked my sled idea in the first place but if he complained the wind made it impossible for me to hear. I remember pulling the empty sled behind me as I followed my brother the rest of the way.
As I've said earlier, I could make the three blocks to school in under three minutes but the trip to my neighbors house took much longer. The wind pushed us around though unlike our babysitter my brother, sister, and I did have the advantage of being closer to the ground. I have no idea how long it took but in my mind it was an hour. It was probably closer to five minutes.
Our babysitter's Mom didn't seem especially glad to see us when we arrived and the baby sitter disappeared without a goodbye. We were shown to a corner and given a blanket. I spent most of the next day in that spot, huddled and trying to stay warm.
There was to be no playing outside this time. The mix of ice and snow gave every snowdrift a sharp edge and the neighbor wasn't nearly as easily cowed as our babysitter from the previous year.
That doesn't mean I never got outside. The next day the winds had died down and the neighbor needed someone to get food from the store. As I was the oldest boy in the house, I insisted I should be the one the get them. I'm sure the girls thought my insistence silly. It was still quite cold. I'm sure they were happy to let me go in their stead.
I pulled my sled down the same path we'd taken from my house. It didn't seem like the same street now that the winds had died down. When I got to the main street I looked for the sidewalk but it was buried under a couple feet of snow. Instead I walked down the middle of the street, with each step coming almost to my crouch as I trudged through the icy mix.
I wasn't in any danger of being hit by a car. There weren't any cars on the road. Once again, it would be a while before the roads were cleared. I think the store clerk was surprised to see me. The shelves were fully stocked and few people had stopped by all day.
My Mom couldn't get out of Columbus. Like many motorists, the combination of cold and snow had stopped her car dead. It wouldn't start. Eventually my Dad showed up and we spent the next week at his house.
As the skies cleared and the roads were plowed we returned to my hometown to see huge mounds of snow lining the streets. It was obvious the storm a year earlier hadn't been nearly as bad. That excited me because if we'd missed a month of school in 1977, they'd keep us out at least two months in 1978.
I was to be sadly disappointed.
School started the next week and the snow was gone quicker than seemed possible. When we returned, all of my friends regaled me with their stories. The thing I didn't know was the blizzards of 1977 and 1978 weren't done affecting my life.
A few years earlier my grandfather had sold his milk route which had enabled him to buy a big farm in the country. Part of his dream was to do a little farming but I think his main goal was to live there in retirement as a place his grandchildren could visit. In the winters, he and my grandmother lived in Florida which is why they weren't around to help when the blizzards hit.
The truth was we hadn't seen as much of him ever since he'd moved even if it was only a mile. After two years of weather based separations, my Mom determined she had to move us closer to her workplace so that could never happen again.
So we left our perfect little town that I realized wasn't so perfect after all. The outside world had come crashing in and destroyed that illusion forever.
The funny thing is when I think back to my childhood I often think back to the blizzards. I remember the fun in the midst of the fear and dread. I knew something had changed even if I couldn't put it into words at the time. Both blizzards resulted in a loss of innocence I never got back. It happens to every child at some point.
It took time but I eventually realized the world isn't a perfect place and my town wasn't perfect either. Leaving it allowed me to grow in ways that never would have happened if I'd stayed and yet I still find myself longing for those long forgotten days riding down the hill on my Flexible Flyer.
I suppose that is true for all of us.
