Hello Washington blizzard my old friend, it was very good to see you again.
Washington got walloped by Old Man Winter yesterday, on the final Saturday before Christmas, and no one was happier about it than yours truly. I confess, I’ve never been able to empathize with the snow haters in the region. I mean, it’s not like we are much sore-backed from shoveling every winter here. Most often, we hardly have cause even to own a shovel. And there’s nothing beautifying or magical about hurricane winds, or energy-sapping August humidity. You don’t much see holiday card imagery themed on cold rains.
But big snows — not for Buffaloans or Minnesotans, who get dumped on all the time, but for us, who all too often go snowless, most particularly around Christmas — have an inherent charm. They force us to slow life down, cast aside chores, excitedly communicate the novel conditions to friends and family elsewhere, and most especially get out and play.
Even our doggies seem to have a novel tail-wagging when confronted by the novel challenge they must face with thigh-high snowbanks enveloping the backyard.
Near 2:00 yesterday afternoon I slid into a heavy duty Columbia snowsuit I purchased last year, and well insulated and protected and iPod-ed I began a one-mile march through our early Christmas present to a nearby mall. All I wanted to do was drop off some Christmas cards at the post office, a task which certainly could have waited until Monday when roads would be passable, but a snowsuit is my life’s favorite uniform, and a hike like yesterday’s, when one could literally walk safely down the middle of Wisconsin Avenue at mid-day, is a once-every-10-years kind of event.
Talk about a good workout!
My emotional attachment to big snow dates back to Presidents’ weekend 1979. That was the Washington blizzard that shut down schools here for an entire week. How could a Washington kid not make a best friend out of that kind of weather event?
Nineteen seventy nine for kids in Washington was so different culturally compared with the Washington of today. With yesterday’s blast I’m sure the overwhelming majority of the region’s youths remained indoors, glued to Xboxes and Playstations. What a shame, what a tragedy. In ’79, we didn’t even have cable TV, and each liberated-from-school morning we’d down a fast breakfast, bundle up, and make for the nearby elementary school ballfields, for big snow makes for wonderful, virtually injury free tackle football!
I remember not being able to run pass routes particularly fast. I remember not wanting to be quarterback all that much (it’s really hard to throw a football with gloves or mittens). I remember all too well the gang tackling! And I remember seemingly every kid in the neighborhood wanting to be a part of the games. If you got cold or tired you could always retreat home, warm up, and return an hour or two later and still find a sizable game still convened.
I didn’t see any tackle football games in my neighborhood during my snow hike yesterday, and that made me sad.
There’s long been another touchstone of emotional significance for me with big snows here, and that’s their association with hockey towns. It may sound somewhat silly, but as kid in love with hockey here, and rooting for a red-headed stepchild of an NHL franchise in the 1970s and ’80s (and ’90s), I felt like when Washington got dumped on in winter time it served as a quasi justification for having hockey here. How couldn’t hockey reside in a scene of the occasional blizzard, was my thinking.
That Washingtonians are genetically coded to way overreact to such weather is part of the winter storm charm. A four-wheel drive owner, I went grocery shopping at 2:30 Saturday morning and had the bread and milk aisles all to myself. I was too excited to sleep anyway.
On his Facebook page very late last night I saw John Walton, no less than a veteran of Minnesota winters, express glee over the 18 inches that hammered Hershey on Saturday: “It’s almost like a Minnesota Christmas! Getting a little misty thinking about it.” I strongly suspect that there’s a strong correlation between one’s love for hockey and an appreciation for winter wonderlands.
The ‘Snowpocalyse’ that overwhelmed our region yesterday — that made Christmas music sound more Christmas-y, afforded an excuse for making eggnog a bit more potent — made me a kid again. Chances are when next such a storm visits us again I’ll be especially in need of that feeling.
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I remember that ’79 President’s Weekend snow fondly. The high school kids across the street made the biggest snowman I had ever seen.
One of the best things of the ’79 storm? I didn’t have to shovel. I’m sore from yesterday, but what fun it was and how wonderful everything looks today!
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For those of us a little younger, the double whammy of ’87 was perhaps the best ten day stretch of our childhood. We had two 18 inch snowstorms in the same week and missed 7 days of school. So much sledding, so much hot chocolate — good times.
The ’87 snow was great since as a HS senior graduation was set and we didn’t have to attend the makeup days.
As a 56 y.o. guy I’d prefer to pass on 20″ snowfalls, especially when 5-6″ fell ater 5:00 pm and I still need to clean off 4 cars, re-shovel and extricate my driveway from 3 foot high plowing drifts, and then check on my two neighbors (who are 65 & 85 y.o., repectively). In ’79 I stayed at my parents house, parked my car and my dad’s car in a small shopping center where we knew the merchants (& which always was plowed), walked 1.5 miles home and 1.5 miles back in he morning with snow shovels so we could go to work.
TGIS(unday)!
The thing I remember the most about the ’79 storm, aside from the week off from school, was listening to the Caps v. Rangers game on WTOP. Ron Weber’s broadcast was continually interrupted by Gordon Barnes back in the studio with ever increasing snow totals. First something like 4-6 inches, and then rising to 8-10 and beyond. So for me, that storm is linked with Ron Weber and the Caps.
I with you, I love the snow and the peace it brings! I got a full 24″ here and it’s breathtakingly beautiful!! I remember the 79 storm too and going out with my dad to walk up to the Highs store. The snow was well up to my waist and having on the marshmallow outfit didn’t make walking all that easy! I was out in it this am with my dogs and watching them bound and burst through the snow, tossing them snowballs how can you not enjoy something so pure and so fun!
Arian … great story.
Forcaps… High’s Stores. That brings back memories.
I remember that year really well – not only did we have that huge snowstorm late in the year. We had a serious cold snap – cold enough to freeze Lake Accotink for the better part of a month. That’s the kind of thing that just doesn’t happen in Springfield.
We took advantage of that to play pick up hockey for hours on end – usually it ended because a parent would come and literally drag a few of us off the ice – it would ruin the goals too because we used our shoes as “nets”. It was the time that I really learned how to skate and I realized I love playing hockey more than watching hockey.
I remember my husband and I driving to the old Caps Center for a hockey game in the snow, with hardly any fans there. And then driving to the “phone booth” in the ’90′s for a game “we couldn’t miss”. We barely made it back to Central PA watching all of the trucks and other SUV’s skidding off the road. Yeah CAPS!!!
At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man ranting on a park bench, I noticed another culture change revealed by this snowstorm compared to the one in ’79: entrepreneurship. I remember making some good $$$ shoveling sidewalks that week (I was 16). Yesterday, not a single kid came by asking to do some shoveling. Our neighbor, with 4 boys ages 11-16, shoveled his own walk.
Make kids work for their tickets to Caps games and maybe this snow will get moved a little quicker!!!
Valley,
That’s a terrific observation, and I noticed the same thing in my neighborhood. Maybe it’s a causality of kids being too video-game-addicted.
I was born in Duluth, MN in ’53 and didn’t leave until ’75. Spent many hours shoveling snow, and it had to be done before you got to play. Biggest difference between there and here: I don’t have my dad telling me to climb on to the second floor roof to get the snow off, lol.
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