Winter Memories

1953 We lived on a hill in Saint Louis in a suburb where there was no snow plowing, so when there was a good snow, it would last for several days and at night, when all the traffic was over, we could ride sleds down the hill after dark. It always seemed magical being out having fun in the snow after dark.

1954 My dad had a new Dodge and he wanted to keep it in the garage. When the snows came, he had to first make it up the hill and then there was another hill getting it up the driveway to the garage. He would get 1/3 up the drive and lose traction, so he would back away and hit it again. It would take him five or six tries before he could get all the way to the garage. I would stand by the driveway and just watch him desperately trying to get his car into the garage.

1962 I was working at a gas station in Wellston, Missouri and on snowy evenings after work I would drive the car onto a deserted parking lot and go sleigh riding in my car, spinning the tires and rocketing around in circles.

1969 we were living in Millington, Tennessee and we had a trailer in a park there. It was south and I didn’t think it would freeze there. I found out it did and the water line into the trailer froze. I went to work and started asking how to keep that from happening. Someone said to get a heat tape to wrap around the pipe. I went to the hardware store after work and asked for a heat tape. They had them so I bought one and went home to crawl under the trailer in the ice and snow to put the tape on. It had warmed up during the day and the water was flowing again. The next morning it was frozen again. I went back to the hardware store after work and said the tape didn’t work. The owner asked if I had wrapped insulation around it. I said no, so he sold me some insulation to cover over the heat tape. I didn’t know it needed that to work and why he didn’t tell me that fact when he sold the tape, I will never know.

1970 we were driving home to Millington from Christmas in Saint Louis. We got as far as Perryville Missouri and the highway was blocked by a tractor-trailer that had jack-knifed and blocked the highway. It was already late evening and I had to report for duty in Millington the next morning. I turned around and drove back to a gas station to get more fuel and ask where there might be another way to get past the blockade. The man there showed me a map of the area roads and pointed to one that would be open. He cautioned me that I would need to let the air out of my tires down to about 20 pounds per square inch and then I could make it. Joyce grabbed Annie in her arms and we headed out to get around the blockade. The station man was right, that road was open and in fact we made the only tire tracks on it. The front bumper of the car was at times pushing snow like a plow.

1971 I was overseas and Joyce and Annie were in Camdenton Missouri. I had rented a house for them just south of town. The house had no insulation in the ceiling. It was a summer house with a cathedral ceiling to dissipate heat and to lose heat in the winter. There was a winter storm that produced five foot long ice-sickles from the edge of the roof. It was close to time for kids to be home from school so Joyce went out to knock them down. Annie got off the school bus and was walking up the slight hill in front of the house when she slipped on the icy ground and slid under the car parked on the road. Joyce kept looking out the window for Annie to come home but couldn’t see her because Annie was trapped under the car. Annie finally worked her way out from under the car and came into the house, cold and crying.

1972 Joyce and Annie were still in Camdenton on Christmas Eve. They were visiting my parents. My sister Marion went back to the house with them to help put up the Christmas tree. Joyce had learned to park up near the highway and walk back to the house so she wouldn’t get stuck on the lane. She parked at an abandoned Laundromat beside highway 5. She shut off the engine removed the key ring and got out of the car when she dropped the key ring into deep snow. The ring being warm melted and disappeared under the snow. They walked to the house and slid Annie through the kitchen window which didn’t have a locking lever. After they warmed up, Joyce went back to the car and down on her hands and knees she sifted through the snow until she found her keys. Cars were traveling the highway during Joyce’s search and she wondered if the passersby thought she had maybe came home drunk and was crawling home in the snow.

1973 we were living on Coronado California. Skies clear, beach just 3 blocks away, but we heard there was snow on Palomar Mountain, so up the mountain we went to see the snow. Teen-age kids were up there as far as they could go, loading snow into the back of pickup trucks and then racing back down the mountain and off to the beach to build snowmen in the sand.

1974 we were back to Camdenton. I was at work and when Joyce got up in the morning the water line under the house was frozen. The heat tape had failed. She called me at work and I told her what she needed to do, crawl under the house and change the heat tape. It was very close under there, so close a person could not roll over. She put on my overalls and crawled under the house. The cat and the dog thought there must be something very interesting if Joyce was going under the house. They followed her in and poor Joyce was trying to change the heat tape with the dog nestled on her back and the cat staring in her face. Joyce was not happy when I got home that night.

1975 my cousin was getting married on a Saturday night. Joyce, Annie and I piled into the car and headed to the wedding on an icy and snowy road up to highway 5. We approached the junction and there was a large truck turning off the highway onto our road. He started sliding sideways toward us. I moved over as far as I could, but got too far and we slid into the ditch. I knew we could not get out of there if I stopped and because we still had forward motion I hit the gas. We picked up speed and I rocked the steering back and forth creeping rapidly up the sides a little closer to the top with each twist and turn. I finally ran out of room in the ditch and facing a tree, I popped up over the edge of the ditch and bounced onto the highway. After slipping and sliding until I could regain control of the car, Joyce asked how I could see to jump out onto the highway. I told her I couldn’t see anything on the highway before we were on it, but I could see the tree we were about to hit.

Same year, I had my TV shop up beside the road we lived on in an old rock house. There was no heat in there, but there was a large fireplace. Every morning I had to gather wood and light a fire so I could work on TV sets. It was a nice way to get set for the day and every time the fire died down I had a nice break to refuel the fire.

Same year, we had a circulator heater in the kitchen and the pilot light would go out some nights. Every time I tried to relight it the gas flow would blow the heater out and singe my eyebrows. I finally dismantled and threw the heater out the door.

1976 on New Year’s Day I got a call from a guy over in Osage Beach. He had a lake house and there was no TV reception. I told him it was a holiday and I was spending it with family. I told him I would be happy to go over there the next day. He begged me to come over and said he would double my billing if I would get over there that morning. His boss was driving down from Saint Louis to watch a football game that was blacked out up there. He was afraid he might lose his job if the boss drove all the way down to the lake for a game and there was no TV. I couldn’t say no because he had so much riding on that TV. It was a quick fix and I was home just after noon with double my normal charge for a service call.

1977 it was so cold in Camdenton that January (never once got above freezing) the ice and snow from December never even began to melt away. I had to park the car and van up by the road to be able to get out. Down by the house snow was so deep the car or the van would not be able to pull up to the road. Mid January the starter on the car quit. I had to lay in the snow and ice to get under the car to remove and replace the starter. All month long one or the other batteries would not start the vehicles, so I was constantly swapping them out to be able to get anywhere.

1993 here on the farm.

1994 was a bad one here in Ash Grove we had almost two feet of snow. I was stuck at home for 2 days clearing snow to get to the road from our garage. Once I got to the edge of the driveway, the snow plow came down the road and plowed 2 feet of snow and ice over the end of the driveway and lawn, blocking me in again. I cleared that the next morning to go to work and by the next morning the plows had blocked me in again. After the second time I cleared back an additional 20 feet so the plows could drop their load on the lawn before they got to my driveway.

2007 January was the granddaddy of them all. Joyce and I spent 14 days with no electricity after the heavy ice storm knocked down dozens of power line poles between the power station and us. No power here means no electric, no heat, no water. We spent dawn to dusk gathering wood buried under snow and burning wood gathered the previous day to heat the house. Only one day did we manage to get to temperature up to 40 degrees inside the house. I scraped snow and ice off the garage and barn roofs so Joyce could melt it on the gas stove for flush water and boil it for drinking water and just heat it for us to wash by the fireplace. Days went by fats as there was always more work to do than daylight to do it. Nights were long, sleeping in the cold and getting up every few hours to re-stoke the fire. All that aside, it was an adventure for me.

Now on the eve of our first winter storm of winter 2013, I have to wonder what this storm will bring. Looking back at the past, I suppose I can handle it.