Remember winter

© By Abraham Lincoln

Brookville weather borders on the bizarre. Most people say this whole year has been screwy. Nobody seems to know why our summer was hot and dry while Europe was smothering in melting heat. A few weeks ago I stood at the window and watched it pour down inches of rain but did not see water shooting out of the sewers like it has in the past. So in spite of heavy rains, nothing has come close to the rains we had one summer in Brookville. 

We stood and watched the manhole covers bounce up and down and shoot-up about 2 feet. Our street looked like a river and it was being fed by neighbor's yards that were flooded and spilling over sidewalks. My backyard looked like a running river. Water got up and flooded the library parking lot. It was an angry Wolf Creek that summer.

In 2002 we had a wet spring followed by a hot dry summer that melted into a cold and wet winter and lots of neighbors were shoveling and blowing snow. So in 2003 we started with a cool and wet spring and have had a nice summer with more than enough rain to keep the grass a bright green into the middle of August. That may change now but my bet is that it is going to be a really nice winter and I might not get to use my new Toro snow blower. 

Sometimes it is hot and humid and the air is loaded with pollutants plus ragweed. At other times it is cool and breezy and you look around thinking it is fall when it is just beginning summertime. Now and then some of us get to see a tornado. Do you remember when it was reported that a tornado took some roof off of Boose Chevrolet? Another time people got to see a tornado skipping along the ground and cross Arlington Road just north of where Interstate 70 is today.

People often talk about the blizzards that snowed us in. I do remember the big one that found most people stranded along Wolf Creek Pike. Larry Gray's wife got stuck and spent a couple of days with others in a farmer's house on Wolf Creek Pike. I left work early that day and got as far as the Heckathorn Road and got stuck. I had a new 1967 Ford. Eventually I was able to back up so I could turn down Heckathorn and followed it to Wellbaum Road. I took that all the way into Clayton and from there got on to I-70 and headed west at a crawl.

It was snowing big time and hard to see more than a few feet in front. But I got in behind a semi and followed it to the exit at Arlington Road and got off and drove on home. The kids and my wife were watching at the window and were glad to see that I made it home. The traffic all stopped on I-70 and many were stranded there under Arlington Road overpass. It had taken me 4 hours to drive from work at NCR to Brookville.

That might be the year the trailer park east of town was snowed in. Someone died but the funeral home couldn't get there to pick up the body. They eventually got the dead man on a snowmobile and strapped him on the seat behind the driver. Do you remember that winter?

Snowmobiles were big sellers for a few years and dealerships sprouted like new wheat. Then our winters began to come and go without much snow and kids and sleds and snowmobiles disappeared. My diary shows one winter we had one snow that just barely covered the grass and that was all. In contrast I have photographs of snow under my patio (which was covered then) to a depth of 3 feet. One winter the snow was so deep along the streets that you could only see little orange flags go past but you couldn't see what the flag was mounted on a car or maybe a snowmobile. 

Snowmobiles were big sellers for a few years and dealerships sprouted like new wheat. Then our winters began to come and go without much snow and kids and sleds and snowmobiles disappeared. My diary shows one winter we had one snow that just barely covered the grass and that was all. In contrast I have photographs of snow under my patio (which was covered then) to a depth of 3 feet. One winter the snow was so deep along the streets that you could only see little orange flags go past but you couldn't see what the flag was mounted on a car or a snowmobile.

I wonder what the year 2014 will be like?