Where should I start? The blizzard hit during a night in mid December accompanied by record cold rushing in from Canada. Our first indication of the impeding doom was the frost on the baseboards of our bedroom when we awoke that fateful morning. Getting dressed as I was normally attired I opened the door to leave, stepped outside and took a breath. Immediately all my nose hairs froze in place, my chest hurt ands my body went numb. Fortunately I fell back into the duplex. Dragging my now lifeless body all the way indoors Grandma Oddball quickly closed the door and gave me mouth to mouth (that, at least was pleasant).

Prudence dictated that after I thawed out we remain indoors until we could assess the situation. Except for the ice growing at the base of the walls it wasn’t too cold inside. We also found out why the rent on the duplex was so cheap. It was a strange (and stupid) design. The units were stacked on top of each other. Fortunately we had the upper unit because the electric heating elements were located in the ceiling. Our downstairs neighbors were a family of five and they couldn’t understand why their electric bill was so high. All their heat was rising to heat us!

At length we had to venture outside and contend with the snow, cold and ice. We literally risked our life just getting down the stairs from our unit to the ground. The roof overhang didn’t cover the stairs so every day I had to brave a forest of icicles in order to attempt to break off the several inches of ice that accumulated on each step from the roof runoff. Both Grandma and I fell more than once on those stairs (thank goodness for rails).

I do have to admit that the icicles were pretty. I’ve never seen anything like them before or since. Very thick and curved into wonderful shapes by the wind they at times formed long pillars of ice from the roof to the ground before spreading out into grottoes of crystal brilliance in the winter sun. Frostcles growing like thorns on dormant trees spread jeweled beauty along the stream edges.

That winter was an education. First we had to learn how to cope with the cold. You’ve heard the old question, “How cold is it?” In our case this was not the beginning of a joke. For about six weeks the daytime high was 20 degrees below zero. I can’t tell you how cold it really got because the thermometer only went down to 50 below. There were several mornings when the thermometer was useless because the mercury had puddled into a little ball at the bottom.

Before starting their cars many people had to first thaw out their car’s oil. The occasional explosion and fire proved irresistible to our local radio station and what we didn’t see we heard about. Being poor we had to make do with what we had. Do you know how hard it is to walk wearing five pairs of frozen pants? I do now. You don’t walk you waddle.

I learned to really drive in snow that winter. The first blizzard dropped up to ten feet of snow. Those people that were able to access their car were the lucky ones. People who went on Christmas vacation and parked their cars in parking lots didn’t see their cars until spring. And if you parked your car on the street after work you had to get a shovel in order to dig it out in the morning. That is if you could find it after the snowplows hid the car even further.

No, my father had it right. The children of today have it too easy. Why in my day … oops, wait a minute. My father was talking about me! How did that happen? I’m too young to be an old codger.

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