THE GREAT SNOWSTORM OF 1967

Winters in Chicago are always an adventure. Especially when you’re 10 years old and there is 24 inches of snow on the ground.

            In 1967 the second largest snowstorm ferociously blew into Chicago. We raptly watched blankets of white fall on the ground for hours. The water fountain in the park across the street from my house stood three feet high. I remember sitting in the living room window watching it slowly disappear as the snow continued to creep up its sides. After a while, only the spout at the top was visible reminding me of a mouse peeping out of its hole.

            All the kids were glued either to their windows or their televisions hoping and praying for the news broadcasters to say “all CPS are closed.” I remember it took very little snow or bad weather to cause the suburban schools to close, but it took a catastrophic act of God to close our schools. When the word finally came you could almost hear the cheers from every household as youngsters sang Hosannas while the parents scrambled to either find sitters or miss work to take care of their children. Not that they would be able to get very far anyway since driving was impossible. Any attempts to do so resulted in cars becoming stuck in oddly contorted positions making driving even more hellish. 

            My Dad got particularly irritable because he was looking at the snow with a grown up, responsible “Oh Hell, I’ve got to shovel my way out of all of this shit” eyes. We saw it with “Wooh, Hooh! No school. We can make snowmen, have snowball fights, make snow angels and go sledding!” eyes.

            At 50 years old, no matter how healthy you think you are or hard you may have worked at keeping your body in shape, you are not prepared to shovel 3 feet of snow without feeling the affects. Especially if the air is also cold and thin making it doubly difficult to breathe. Daddy discovered this and got even madder with every heave of his snow shovel. Although when we went out to help him we could occasionally get him to good naturedly return the fire of a barrage of snow balls.

            Once people were successful at clearing a path from the door to the sidewalk, their next feat was to shovel out their cars and driveways or parking spots. That is, provided they hadn’t already succumbed to cardiac arrest or injured their backs, knees or any other vital muscles or body parts.

            Once the driveway or parking spot was cleared, it was wildly important to retain possession of that spot since it probably took several hours to clean. Occasionally this was accomplished by placing household furniture such as old chairs or tables or anything large enough in the space to mark it as being already taken. Unfortunately, what sometimes happened was that not only could you lose your space but your furniture as well. Needless to say this lead to many altercations and sometimes they became serious enough for police intervention. Whoever said snow made people feel peaceful and calm obviously drove snowplows, employed plenty of domestic help or lived in Las Vegas.

            While the adults were fighting their battles with shovels and salt as their weapons, we kids were loving every minute of it, not understanding why our parents were becoming increasingly grumpy, agitated and sometimes downright mean. We saw every inch of this fluffy, white wonderland as an opportunity to engage in a new, fun activity for ourselves and even our pets.

            One of the most humorous memories I have of this time was watching my dog, Lady try to walk in the doggie boots we bought her. Not that she was even able to walk in that much snow with or without them since the minute she walked out of the door and off of the path we had shoveled she disappeared into a snow drift. Once we dug her out and she realized the only way she was going to make any progress was to remain on the shoveled areas, she then had to figure out a way to walk with four little rubber booties on her feet. Whoever, designed these things evidently wasn’t familiar with dog feet or for that matter not much of an animal lover.

            These things resembled four little gray hard rubber balloons. There was no possible way the poor little creature could gain its footing. The idea of having boots for your dog was so cute however, that you simply had to give them a try. I must admit, I’ve never seen an animal walk with each leg going in different directions at once. At least not in real life. Perhaps in cartoons.

            Once we finally finished laughing and realized these boots were of no use except for our entertainment, we did the humane thing and removed them. Lady then promptly tried to bite us as we attempted to make her go inside. I don’t think she wanted to remain outside as much as she just wanted revenge.

            Another source of recreation we discovered was diving off of the tops of people’s garages in to the snow drifts below. That is provided you could find a way to get to the top without killing yourself. The only problem was once you dove in, you had to climb back out. Several of us were buried so deep we almost drowned or suffocated or whatever you do in really deep snow when you can’t extricate yourself.

            The other significant risk was the possibility of there being a hard or sharp object invisibly buried in the snow in which you were landing. We were to dumb and to intent on having a good time to even consider that possibility. Fortunately, we all survived without skewering ourselves.

            In the dark ages when I was 10, a sled was a necessary piece of equipment for winter sports. Now a snowboard or a toboggan is required and that’s only if it is identified or endorsed by the most recent X games gold medalist. However, in 1967 a sled was all that was needed. Sometimes just a large, sturdy piece of cardboard was acceptable.

            Now in order for a sled to provide the truly exhilarating, adrenaline pumping, somewhat terrifying experience for which we so yearned, a hill of some kind with a significant incline was required. The bigger the hill, the greater the thrill. The monster storm had provided a veritable cornucopia of those due to all of the plowing and pushing the snow into gigantic white miniature Mount Everests just waiting for us to ascend and take the plunge.

            Of course my sister, Pat and I, being the bold souls that we were, realized we were in snow mound Nirvana living across the street from a park where two of the most beautiful man made peaks had been formed on each end of the park’s baseball diamonds. After tiring of the mound in the diamond directly across the street from our house, we decided to explore and conquer the mound clear on the other side of the park on Parnell Street.

            A day or two after the storm when the streets were a bit more passable thanks to the plows, the mound we chose was at least ten feet high. One side, the side facing the interior of the park was smooth and perfect for whooshing your sled straight into the snow covered baseball field. The back side of the hill was uneven and perfect for getting a foothold, provided you were very careful climbing to the top. Once there, you proceeded to perfectly position yourself so that your descent was almost orgasmic.

            Off we trudged in waist deep snow across the park pursuing our quest to conquer our ideal mountain. Pat ascended first. From the rear of the mound she seemed to have no problem reaching the peak, positioning herself on the sled in the traditional manner, lying flat on her stomach, and racing down the mound at break neck speed, screaming at the top of her lungs the entire time.

            Encouraged by her success and wild eyed shouts of encouragement and enthusiasm, it became my turn. From the back of the mound I began my ascent. Choosing my footholds with extreme care I slowly made my way up. When I reached the peak, I made a bold decision. I decided to sit on the sled and go down instead of the safer method of lying on my stomach. This was an extremely risky decision because it provided very little room in which to place your center of gravity. Shifting your weight too much in one direction would cause you and the sled to go uncontrollably careening down the hill backwards, which is exactly what happened.     

            As soon as I sat on the sled and felt it begin its descent in the opposite direction of where I had intended for it to go, I realized my faux pas. I noticed as I went down the back side of the hill, the look on my sister’s face was a cross between surprise and panic because she knew the bottom of the hill on that side emptied out into the street. She also noticed the way I had situated myself on the sled, made it impossible to control or stop.

            As I went out onto Parnell Street, I noticed a large beige station wagon approaching, fortunately very slowly since the snow still hadn’t been completely cleaned. This vehicle looked vaguely familiar to me. The closer it got, the more familiar it and the driver became. My first thought after making it to the bottom of the hill uninjured was “Whew, thank goodness! Upon seeing this particular car and driver veering down on me, my next thought was “OH SHIT, I’M SO DEAD! If Daddy doesn’t hit me with the car and kill me, he’s going to kill me once he gets out of the car for being in the street.”

            Fortunately, he was so shocked to a) see a kid sliding backwards out in front of his car and b) seeing that it was one of his children and narrowly missing killing her, that once he stopped the car and jumped out all he could muster was a string of profanities such as “What the !@$#%& are you doing in the middle of the street?”

            I had suspected years earlier that Daddy’s bark was worse than his bite. However one could never be sure when exactly you could inspire him to bite. Hence my intense panic at seeing the furious look on his face.

            Never having been one to think or speak very rapidly, all I could think to do was try to stop his tirade and possible physical chastisement by doing something that might make him think I was already injured. I decided to burst into hysterical tears and babble incoherently.

            Since Pat was two years older than me, I felt it was only right that I implicate her somehow in this mishap, only I couldn’t find a way to spin it since she was on the other side of the hill screaming, laughing and waving goodbye as I took the plunge.

            That didn’t matter however because Daddy found a way to punish both of us. He promptly herded us and our sleds into the car, drove home and told Momma what happened. GOD HELP US!

            Thus endeth the snowball fights, snowmen, snow angels and garage leaps. We spent the remainder of the storm’s snow days listening to the radio play the top hits of the day. The Beatles, The Association, Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons, Lesley Gore and, oh yeah, this new guy from Wales who had a really good voice and a cool song called “It’s Not Unusual” that Pat seemed to really enjoy.

            Now that I think about it, she enjoyed it so much I believe that’s the reason he became her first true love.

            But that’s a story for another time.