The Storm of '71

How many dates do you have implanted in your brain?  Dates that you remember exactly what you were doing and where you were on that day, no matter how many years have passed.  I'm not talking about the biggies like 9/11, I'm talking days that were big in your life, or your neck of the woods.  For instance, January 24th was a doosey for me.  On January 24th, 1969, my HUGE crush walked with me to the park and kissed me on a park bench.  This guy was such a crush I still to this day remember his car's license plate.  I think that may be in part because I didn't want anyone to know I liked him, so I referred to him even in my diary as AL554.  In that year I wrote AL554 and January 24th so many times they have stuck in my brain.  Now, when that day in January rolls around I have to chuckle and thank the Lord above that nothing ever materialized with Mr. AL554.  I'm very happy I ended up with the one I got instead!

Forty years ago today, February 22, 1971 is one of those dates, not just for me, but for a lot of people from around here.  I was fifteen years old and a snowstorm hit this area unlike any ever since.  I don't remember  details like snow totals or exactly how hard the wind blew, but I do know there was no such thing as a fence for a several county swath.  The drifts were clear up over some houses.  Some of the main highways were blocked for a week, some of the country roads for a few weeks.  School was out for a week.  My biggest concern was that I was snowed-in at home which was twenty two miles from town and one of my girlfriends who also lived out in the booney's got snowed-in in town.  Talking to her on the phone I got to hear all about her and my other friends in town sledding, and having a wonderful time while I was bored and feeling sorry for myself half a county away!

For my husband it was a whole different story.  He was also snowed in at his house which was seven miles from a different town, but he had a lot more to worry about than being bored.  His Dad was very ill and was in a hospital eighty miles away along with his mother.  Back at the farm, Mark, two of his sisters, his brother and their families were snowed in with him.  The extended family had come home having gotten word that their Dad had taken a turn for the worse.  With their minds on their Dad of course, no one thought to stock up on groceries ahead of the coming storm.  After several days without much food, Mark and his brother took out cross country on a tractor as far as they could go.  When the tractor got stuck, they walked the rest of the way to the main highway, which had been cleared enough their Grandpa could meet them and take them into town to get a few sacks of groceries.  Grandpa took them back to where he'd picked them up, they carried the groceries to the tractor, dug, and pushed, rocked it back and forth and finally got the tractor to move again to get them back home.  In the barn yard was 100 black Angus heifers, calving for the first time. Mark had to keep his eye on them and try to save as many baby calves as he could.  The bulls were a couple pasture's away and he carried bales of feed to them and kept the frozen creek busted up so that they could get a drink.  At the age of sixteen he had a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, but he held up well.  To his recollection, they only lost two baby calves which is amazing.

I always said I wish we would get a storm like that just one time so my kids could experience it, but in reality it is a blessing that we haven't.  Being a kid, I don't remember the hardship it brought, the livestock lost, the financial repercussions, the toll it took.  It is probably best that it is just a memory to share with others.  You can ask anyone over the age of fifty who has lived around here all their life  - "Do you remember the storm of '71?"  There is no explanation needed, their eyes light up, they shake their head and launch into their own personal story, where they were and what happened to them during the blizzard forty years ago today.