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Winters in Illinois Winters in northeastern Illinois were as different each year as were mom's seemingly unending trail of boyfriends, and some were just as violent. We had the mild ones which, of course, don't seem to stand out in your memory other than knowing they existed. Sort of like knowing all the presidents after George Washington. You know they were there, but only a few stand out. So yes, there were the mild winters - the ones in which it seemed every new snow was just perfect for the making of snowballs, and where every yard, well, the yards who had children to play in them and those are the only ones that mattered anyway, had the greenbrown maze that led to snowmen. There were no politically correct terms in those days so "snow women" were very rare. Besides, what woman would want to stand out in the yard if her ass was five times bigger than her bust? We made snowmen whose girth and height were dictated by family size, unity, and the strength of dad, who had to lift the midriff and head, setting them carefully and lovingly in place, while making some very funny noises and having some amazingly purple facial colorations. It was a winter world where snow angels outnumbered devil children one thousand to one (one thousand to three, according to mom, but I'm not convinced my dad really was the devil) and where every icicle tasted like a mountain stream. But there were the other years in which the winter's cold was like a northern version of a hurricane. One was in 1967. It's the first one I personally remember. It was a freak one, too. Usually, where we lived, the wind would blow from west to east, especially in the winter. Maybe it had something to do with Lake Michigan fifty miles away. Maybe it was just a test from God. All I know is our doors on the mobile home we lived in (back then we called them 'trailers' but never added the word 'trash' to it) had both doors facing east. So when the snows came, we could usually get out the door without too much wading. Not this blizzard though. Sometime in the night it started coming in hard. Let me tell you, if you've never tried to live out a blizzard in a mobile home, you really can't understand how hard it is. The aluminum siding covers two inches of insulation, which then has quarter-inch panelling inside for walls. The cold comes in, the heat goes out. When the wind is blasting, there isn't one thing that stops it from coming in. You can feel the breeze through the panelling, sort of like that Green Acres sitcom where Eddie Albert tries to paint his house, but the wood is so porous the paint shoots right through. So there we were, basically freezing indoors, each of us parked right over the heater vent in different rooms, blankets making teepees around us as we wait for the heater to kick in. And there we slept. Hours later we woke, but it was still dark. Now according to the wind up clock (power outages never bother those), it should have been well into the morning, and even in a blizzard it does get brighter in daytime. Even to my seven year old mind this seemed wrong. It didn't take long to figure it out, though. Our dog, who had been inside for over twelve hours, needed a break. Being very well trained, he knew that break had better not happen in the house, so we needed to get him out. So I tried to open the door, and it wouldn't budge. Thinking it frozen (it had happened before) I went to the other door - with the same results. Our home was under a huge snow drift, and my inability to open the doors had nothing to do with my miniature seven year old body. It had actually buried us. Well of course that was scary, and I did what most seven year olds would do - I screamed my head off. (I have found it since, regardless of any rumors you may have heard from my ex-wife, and definitely not where she said I had it!) This brought everyone awake, and they weren't all that happy about it, even with the situation we were in. So with quick decision-making skills, they decided one of us had to go out a window, dig through the snow with their hands and a big spoon, find the snow shovel, and dig out the door. You know what sucks? Being the only one who can fit through a window. So after lifting out one of the glass plates, they dug as far as they could, dumping the snow in bowls and then in the bathtub, and then they shoved me out. Maybe they were nicer than that, I can't say for sure. I just know I felt like they shoved me out. And then everyone else went and sat in the kitchen. I learned how to make up many swear words that day. Yes, I did end up digging them out. Snot freezing the scarf to my lips, five wrong paths, and a whole lot of crying, but I got the door open. After that it was fun. We (my older brother and I) built our own mazes through the snow. It was over four foot tall where it didn't drift, and up to ten foot tall where it did. We had our own little Vietnam, a whole underground system that took up most of our yard. Well, we did until my stepfather walked over one of them and disappeared for a while. It was fine with me, but he wasn't all that happy. There were other great bonuses from winters up north. Not cutting our grass (for free, I must add) was one. The income we made digging out sidewalks for just a two block area was another. (Again, not only was ours the longest, it was the only one we didn't get paid for and couldn't refuse. Parents!) Then there were the fortresses we built for our green army men, which snowballs would then obliterate, and the sledding... ohhhh, the sledding. Okay, I know almost everyone who has been living in the snow as a child has sledding stories. The cardboard box, the fifty foot hill, the inevitable flips and, best of all, the parents who seem to have forgotten how, because the sled always beats them down the hill by about ten feet and three minutes. But we had one big, beautiful winter addition to our fun. He was our dog, Laddie. Laddie was half-collie and half-St. Bernard, and he had the best of both animals. He had the collie's beautiful coloring and hair length, but had the St. Bernards strength and size. And he loved us to death. He attacked anyone who hurt us kids, including one stepfather that he almost killed. He broke a chain used for towing cars to get at him. But in winter, he was our one-dog sledding team. We would hook him up to the sled, fit the three of us boys behind on the sled, unhook him from the tree, and hang on for dear life, screaming and giggling like only children seem to be able to do. We usually would be able to hang on for five or six blocks before he dumped us on a corner. We would then futilely chase him for another block trying to get him to come back, then walk home laughing and hoping he would make it home before the cops got there. He always did, but they were never too far behind. I honestly think the guy who does the Marmaduke comics in the funnies got the idea from Laddie. Then there was the blizzard of '78. I remember that one because that was when the fad of saying "I survived (blank disaster of blank year)" became famous. In that one I was working, and the store owner refused to close down early. He didn't feel anyone would have trouble going home, and while for him I am sure that was the truth, I had to head in a different direction, which was basically farm land, so all the roads where streaming white from drifting snow. So when we got out, everyone went to their homes, while I, my best friend, and his girlfriend, tried to make it back to my home. In those days I was a bit of a daredevil. Very little in life scared me, so when we were driving down a closed highway, with ten foot high drifts on my side of the road, I was driving on the other side, in the oncoming lanes, basically praying no one else would be coming the other way. And I was right. I found out why about half way home when we came upon a drift that blocked the whole road. Deciding that my car was tough enough to do it, I backed up, then took off, hitting the drift at a good forty M.P.H.. We made it through, but with one little catch. The reason that drift covered the road is because some fool before us tried the same thing, stalled, and his car was buried there. If I had been three inches to the right, you wouldn't be able to read this story. Anyway, it was then that I decided I knew there was a path open behind me, I had no idea about the road in front, so we decided to double back to the store we worked at and hope to find someone who would let us stay with them for the night. We didn't, so we ended up sleeping in the car all night long, me in the back seat (I had the foresight to have three army wool blankets in the trunk) and them making out in the front seat. And yeah, I was upset. I knew he was touching something warm. After all, there wasn't anything blocking the sound. So I made them give me one of the other blankets. It didn't help me any that they starting laughing when I told them why. I didn't have too many had winters after that one. I moved to Texas in 1981 for a while, joined the Army in 1983, and was sent to the Republic of Panama, then to California, and now am here in sunny old Florida. I have tasted snow once, the only time it snowed this far south, back in 1989. Just remember if you live in a cold climate. If you are cold, you can always put on more clothing. Here, when you are too hot, there is only so much clothing you can take off. And when half the population are etirees in their late sixties and over, there is only so much clothing you want them to take off! Copyright © 2003
Greg Young
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