Terry Tales

Snow Day

Snowdrifts bring back childhood memories from when my dad delivered the mail on our rural route. He took the 'neither rain nor snow' slogan seriously and almost never missed a day in his 20-year career. One winter morning, we woke to 4-foot drifts and no school bus. Dad said no problem, we could just ride into town with him. We tried to get out of it, but Mom said go. So, the three of us bundled up to brave the icy trek to school instead of relaxing with comics and hot cocoa.

A mile of unplowed, uphill gravel road separated us from the highway. Some stretches were swept bare by the frigid wind, but there were also some deep drifts. Dad got up to ramming speed and busted through a couple of the smaller drifts, but he was stymied by a 4-footer a quarter mile short of the pavement. There was far too much snow to shovel, so we had to turn back. But that didn't mean giving up. It took a bit of 'rocking' the car back and forth to get loose, but dad was up to the task. You might wonder why he didn't chain up. Well, a man who knows how to drive in the snow doesn't need chains!

The roads in the area are laid out in a grid along section lines, so Dad tried again a mile further west. That road is more level, except for one steep hill. Dad took a run at it, but it was too slick, and the car slid sideways against the snowbank plowed up at the edge of the road from previous storms. This time we were really stuck. Or were we? Dad told us kids to get out and push, but sideways, not forward. We all pushed on the left front fender of the car to spin it around. The road was pure ice, dad wiggled the steering wheel, and the front tires slowly slid in a 180-degree arc. And then, despite using the brakes, the car took off like a bobsled down the hill. By sheer luck, Dad was able to stay on the road. Us kids skated down to the bottom of the hill in our snow boots and got back in.

We went another mile west, dad found an open roadway, and we finally made it onto plowed pavement. From there it was a relatively easy trip to school and on to the post office. We found that school was canceled and the kids from town had been sent home. However, it was too late to do us any good. We had to wait for dad to come back in the afternoon after he'd finished his route. A few other kids were in a similar predicament, so we all had a day-long study hall in the Junior High building. A dozen bored students of various ages and one annoyed teacher who had to babysit. It made for a long day.

At least the trip home was mostly downhill.