So- they'd cancel school because they felt conditions were too dangerous to deploy the buses to pick kids up. And what did we (I?) do?
Drive to the school and use that North parking lot to skid, slip, slide, and do "snow donuts".
That lot was free of light standards and relatively flat...
A perfect place to act like a fool.
But we did learn skills there.
We learned the snow was unpredictable and places like that lot were where you wanted to experiment and make mistakes.
Ron S. and I also learned a brand-new Corvette is no fun on the snow...
Its near 50/50 (front/rear) weight balance meant it didn't want to hang its butt out in a slide, meaning it didn't like to slide at all.
A new Pontiac Bonneville convertible was a MUCH better tool for such shenanigans!
Got any snow stories?
Let's hear 'em!
9 comments:
I remember the first sectional"snow in" at Whiteland H.S. walking back from "Babs" restaurant and having frozen hair when we got back. Found out that no one was allowed back out of the building due to weather. Remember the boys and girls being separated and sent to different areas of the H.S. (Security) and candy bars being passed out with the warning to eat them slowly because that's all there was / no more. Then after there were several guys caught over at the girls encampment they sent everyone back to the gym. Light were out (except for the security lights up in the corner of the gym) and most decided to try and get a little sleep / bleachers were hard. About 1:30 - 2:00 in the morning the power came back on and all of the lights were blazing and the buzzers and horns for the game were instantly blaring. It took quite awhile for the people who knew how to work the scoreboard and the "sound effects" to return to the area and shut the NOISE down. A little later they decided that a sock hop would be in order and that the ban on leaving the gym area to go ANYWHERE else in the building would remain in effect. Great sock hop with our own Ronnie G (Bills cousin) clearing the floor dancing with that strange tall girl that nobody knew. Where did Ronnie come up with her . . . and nobody knew who she was. He had the last laugh, turns out it was his cousin and they had kinda taught each other to dance or maybe she taught Ronnie, but they were definitely the center of attention / everyone stopped to watch. I might add that I can attest to this due to my excellent view from the bleachers (my normal location at a sock hop). Remember riding back to the Valley with Bob Briggs at the wheel and having us (bus was getting empty as he dropped people along the way) go back and sit in the seats over the rear tires to try and get some traction. Seems like it took 5 + hours to get to our house on Morgantown Rd just 2 drives South of Max Ave. Heard that it 2-3 more hours to get to the school hill and they went around that and ended up in Bargersville around dark. Never really knew for sure about Bargersville because there were a lot of stories by then. But I can tell you that I went up to bed and slept for about 5 hours just to become a little "sober" again / way past 24 hours with any real sleep. I forgot to say that back in the gym / there was one guy that woke up around 8 in the morning . . he had slept through the entire night of horns and bells. I think Terry B. was there pointing at the guy when he woke up.
Oh, and yes, when we woke up after the nap at home, we got our black buckle boots and two pair of everything on and went outside and had a ball in the snow. . . . funny the wind chill didn't cause permanent damage . . . but of course we didn't have wind chill back then so it COULDN'T have bothered us anyway. And of course that was just the first of may years we had Sectional Snow Storms. What a time we had! I miss exploring the creek and all the other great stuff that was just around the next corner. Strange, Maybe there's some great stuff still waiting just around the next corner , . . I'll let you know a little later what I found. Best to all !
dj
Me again, I'm sure I posted same topic snow storm (above) awhile ago, but that first sectional snow always comes to mind. I can remember another deal in SW Kansas when the storm came over the mountains in N.M. and sent an ice storm followed by 10 inches of snow on top of it in less than 24 hours. Out there the roads are two lanes wide with trucks hauling beef either "live or hanging" and they don't back off for anyone. (Figure 10,000 head per day killed divided by Max of 38 head per truck) and that figures out to a lot of trucks per day. That's just live beef, not the trucks hauling back out of the plants. Anyway, I'm stuck in Liberal Kansas ( Dorathy's and Toto's home). It is now after midnight and the snow is still coming down and there's no way I'm going 'back out" in this stuff. Well, I run onto a guy in the liquid refreshment area of the Holiday Inn that wants to go over to another establishment in town and is willing to drive (he hadn't been outside in a few hours) and wanted someone to ride slong. I want to add that that was a normal deal in Liberal because of the way the locals ran the area / power in numbers. So as we were driving along the main drag 8-10 " deep snow, I suggested that he may want to start slowing down for the up coming red light. He expressed his "Thanks" for the warning. I mentioned that it was really hard to see, given the really heavy snowfall etc. and he commented that "that didn't really bother him; it was just that he was night blind and the glare from the snow, what with all of the street lights etc made him blind as a bat / made it really hard to see anything (including the stop lights etc.) . . . he was mostly just trying to stay between the telephone poles, which explained his driving down the middle of the street. I did get another ride back to the Holiday that night. The good news was that any wrecks were on the driver, not me! And we we're only able to go 5 or so MPH so couldn't have done much damage. But I doubt that the "locals" were stopping anyone; didn't even see them out, weather was probably too bad. And that's another story from the memory bank. Just for the record, there is a lot of snow that falls between here and "Home" in SW Kansas.
dj
It's just another reason we were fortunate to be raised where we were... in an area where it snowed and you couldn't expect snow-removal equipment to be out anytime soon. We learned to deal with it.
Eight to 10 inches of snow obviously causes difficulty even in areas where they do have good snow removal DJ, and snow that high begins to "high center" some cars so that they cannot get traction under any circumstance. I'm glad your story doesn't have a tragic ending.
I have a different take:
Problems even with relatively light snowfall. In 1966 I was based at Ft. Jackson S.C. when they had their first measurable snowfall in over 20 years... about an inch of accumulation. They literally shut the city down!
In early February of 1968 I was at Dallas, TX. getting ready to start flight school when they got 4 inches of snow there. Knowing Dallas also seldom sees snow and even more seldom sees the ground turn white I drove to a spot overlooking a downhill approach to a busy intersection and stop light and sat back to watch the fun. In about an hour I saw a multitude of cars slide sideways and backwards through that intersection resulting in 4 relatively minor, but laugh inducing fender-benders. (At the time I wished I had my video camera along.)
I still think VK's probably know how to drive on snow-packed roads better than much of the rest of the world.
GB, I was in Austin, Tx. once when they had an ice storm come in and even the fellows with the sand trucks weren't sure what to do. I thought that someone should tell them to turn the dump trucks around and back up the interstate ramps while dumping the sand for traction. As it was, everyone was held up in a hotel (trade show) and there were no plans to go outside until things had melted. Two days later, I headed toward Dallas on clear roads. I'm thinking that even today in Dallas, if there's an inch of snow officially measured, the local newspaper is free that day. I do remember a friend of mine that had moved to Dallas from Indy sayubg that the locals had NO idea how to drive on snow . . . reminded them of bumper cars . . and for sure a day Not to go out in your car.
GB, you're right about tragedy in particular given your profession. (Thankfully, Kansas is a half life ago.) More recently; I passed a fatal crash on I-65 last week and just 1/4 north of the crash a car came around me going way roo fast and spun in front of me ending cross wise blocking the ramp to I-465. I got across 465 and the truck / car wreck was in the North bound lanes with another car in the deep ditch off the South bound lanes. Everyone had slowed to about 30 in order navigate the ice when a young girl in a Honda Civic came charging through at regular speed. Didn't see a cell phone, just a cigarette in one had and the steering wheel in the other.
Go figure, better her than me. Must be a sign of the times, but now days I even wait for the plows to come thru before I try to go out. Of course there's always the one that comes through and pushes snow up into my drive, but that's another story . . . . COLD here the rest of the week, but I guess that's just Indiana in January.
dj
It sowed and blowed and the guy came by and plowed again yesterday; I met him as he was backing into my neighbors drive and told him he could back up into mine if he wanted and push the snow out the other direction. He thanked me and rather than back in he turned around and drove up into the drive and pulled the snow back out into the cul-de-sac (spln) and pushed it back into a pile away from the drive. I thanked him/ I went back in the house and put on more appropriate clothes and went back out and finished the walks and last but not least the driveway . . right out to the street . . nice and clean with nothing left at the curb . . . ah . . . what a good feeling. . . when what did I hear but wait it sounds like Santa and his reindeer! . . coming to leave a forgotten gift for some little child in the neighborhood? . . . Fat Chance, it was the SOB with the snow blade making one last run and he turned in to make one last swipe past my house, clearing next to the curb. Only problem is that when he makes the turn around the cul-de-sac the blade pushes the snow back into the driveways, I stand and watch as he goes by and I wish it Were Santa, at least he doesn't do snow pushing. I paused for just a moment and visually weighed the snow just deposited back into the drive vs. the snow he graciously "pulled" out of the drive earlier in the day, and was again thankful for the kind snow blade man. Dad always said the it was easier to pull the wheel barrow than to push it, maybe he was right after all. Heck, I'm getting so bad anymore that I even (sometimes) read the directions 'before' attempting assembly. And that's is for sure when it comes to the new IT / electronics. That would include things like toasters, Christmas tree lights etc.
Later, dj
It's time for a new subject. We have had enough snow.
So Anonymous, why don't you start one?
It's a sunny day in the neighborhood today!!! Just trying to take the lead in new topic.
dj
I remember getting my '64 Harley CH stuck in the snow on Smith Valley Road and leaving it there almost 2 days before getting it out.
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