Snowfall

                                                                                                             

When It’s a Beautiful Day recorded “White Bird” in December, 1967, lead vocalist Dave LaFlamme was living with the band in the attic of an old house in Seattle. As LaFlamme remembers, those claustrophobic surroundings made everyone feel like caged birds.

Shoveling snow in February remains both a rite of passage and a moment of nostalgia for me.  I chuckled as frantic crowds prepared for another “monster” snow storm this weekend poised to “blast” us into the netherworld.  My own stocks of milk and bread are in good supply.  I found the powdery mix fairly easy to shovel.

Today is the anniversary of the biggest snowstorm that I ever missed.  While sitting in the safety of my dorm room at Colgate University back in 1978, a monster Nor’easter blitzed Boston and paralyzed portions of New England for a week. With everyone banned from driving on the roads, I remember my mom telling me that she  used one of my old sleds, trudged to the supermarket, and dragged back groceries to the house.  She didn’t really mind.  She said she appreciated all the quiet.

But most of the time, Mother Nature enjoyed putting me directly in her sites, even at an early age.  I was nine years old when my young brothers and I were saying good bye to my parents who were headed to the Caribbean for a holiday.  They placed in charge a lovely octogenarian named Mrs. Wilber, who I best remember for her proclivity to use Vicks Vapor Rub to cure every ailment. 

Back in 1969, the local weather forecasters relied upon chalkboards filled with isobars, which they often banged with their palms for true dramatic effect.   I suspect their accuracy rate was about 30 percent, so I never blamed my parents for failing to notice that stormy weather was starting to track up the Eastern coast.  In fact, the local media was only predicting a chance of the white stuff.

Sometime between February 9 and February 10, roughly two feet of snow landed in my suburban neighborhood.    I don’t remember if we lost power, but I do know that my brother Eric and I couldn’t open the front door, so we had to climb out of a window to get outside.  We were too young to truly understand the gravity of the situation, and that’s probably a good thing, since I remember the storm as an excellent opportunity to make snow forts and sled down the hill at the end of our street.

In New York City, this blizzard became known as the Lindsey storm, forever associated with then Mayor John Lindsey and his administration’s slow response to clear away the snow.