Weather

It is cold in Illinois today. We woke up to a morning temperature of 16 degrees below zero F with a wind chill factor in the in the mid -40 degree below zero F range. While it is bad when I was out this morning walking Teddi and Lily my thoughts went to when was it worse. I don't remember the year but I do remember we lived in Abingdon in a real shithole of a house. That would place the date sometime between 1979 and 1982. We had a crappy car, like always in those days, and it needed gas so I could attempt to get to work. I remember driving up to the Wareco station in Abingdon to fill up and standing by the gas pump. The temperature was in the minus 20 degree range, it was snowing and the wind was blowing about 30 miles per hour. The wind chill was in the -80 degree range F. It felt as I was standing there that someone was taking a frozen metal file and peeling the skin off my face. I worked at the Mary Davis Home at the time and it turned out I didn't need the gas because there was no way to get to work. Our bedroom was on the northwest corner of the house and we had a water bed. We had to close off our room to keep the rest of the house warm and the water in the matress froze. I hated that winter. They talk about today and say this is the coldest air mass to hit the area since 1996. It seems to me that for all of us who can remember the winter we compare all others to is 1978/1979.

Carol and I lived on Fremont street in Galesburg. I worked at the Mary Davis Home and she worked at St. Mary's Hospital. Our daughter Tamara was 2 years old and Jeremy was a bit over 6 months old in January 1979. We had one of those storms that comes along once or twice in a lifetime. I don't remember how big the one storm was I just remember about every time I would dig my way out near the street the snowplow would come by and fill in the hole I was trying to make. Carol was stuck out a St. Mary's for three days because no one could get in to work and they had patients to feed. Our friend Dan Roberson finally got his car going and tried to get to the hospital. As he crossed Route 34 his car died. When he opened the hood the engine compartment was completely packed with snow. It had filled up while the car was moving. Mother nature added insult to injury with snowfall of 13.20 inches in December 1978 and 27.00 inches in January 1979. This would have been enough to make it memorable but she had to throw in cold weather. In January 1979 the average temperature was 8.5 degrees F. The streets were all ice covered and glazed. When you were coming to an intersection you put on the brakes about a half block back and hoped you didn't slide through. It was simply too cold for salt to work. As bad as it was in town it was worse in the country. The road where we live now took two full days to open because they had to use an end loader to dig their way through.

The pictures below are of my Dad digging out the road in front of his house and my Grandparents home across the road.

 So, is it bad out today? Sure. Does it compare with 1978-79? No.