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My youngest son moved out in ’93 to work for Royal Caribbean. Two years later, oldest son got transferred from SF to Miami by Citibank. In 2000, the building I was property manager for was sold and I was out of a job. By selling my house there, I could buy two of them here (not any more though). So here I am. In the meantime, oldest son gets transferred back, quits Citibank after 27 years and goes to work for WaMu. And you know what happened to them. Now he’s with Bank of the West and VERY happy there. So not much chance of him coming back here as BOW doesn’t have any branches in FL…YET!
Then, after 9/11, Royal Caribbean cut way back on their IT people and other son was out of a job. He went to work for himself and moved up to Deltona (between Daytona and Orlando) where they got 3 acres on a lake. Can’t hardly argue with that. So, here’s mom, left by herself. Boo-hoo! But I love it here, can’t think of living anywhere else.
I was born and raised in Chicago and a 4X4 might work in snow only but not the snow with ice underneath like most Chicago streets have. On ice a 4X4 is useless except to give those that drive them a false sense of security and make them more dangerous.
I remember 1 winter the windchill was over 80 below and we everyone drove around with cardboard over over the front grill to protect the radiator from the wind. I went out and bought a snowmobile one piece suit and wore that to work with long underwear underneath. It was required from walking from the car, across the parking lot to the door of the hospital I worked in. I worked 3-11 shift and we’d all carry syringes with alcohol in them to unfreeze our locks at night and we’d take turns going out to the parking lot starting each other’s cars every couple of hours. There wasn’t a lot of snow that year but the wind and ice were terrible. Most mornings you couldn’t get to your door locks without chopping the ice away and then you had to crack the ice to open the doors. If you lived in the suburbs the streets were plowed and salted, in the city no such luck.
I moved to Alabama in 2003 and saw snow for the first time since then when it snowed this past February. We got about 1-2 inches and my SIL lives 20 miles north of us and they had 4 inches. The schools were closed, the city and county buildings were closed. They were warning everyone the day before to stay home if you could and not to drive unless it was absolutely necessary. I had an early doctor’s appointment that day and told Don I wan’t afraid of driving in the snow, I was afraid of all the people who didn’t know how to.
when I lived in the western Chicago suburbs. It went down to -28°. That was before they started quoting wind chill temps. My husband owned a gas station in Skokie and he ran out of heating fuel (as did many, many others that night) and had to be there to pay for the load when it came (in the middle of the night of course!). So, we were up all night starting the cars that were left there for repair to keep them from freezing up. This was before engine block heaters, etc. And since the station had no heat, we would have to get in one of the outside (so no carbon monoxide poisoning) cars to get warm. We used cigarette lighters to thaw out the door locks. Man, that was cold.
Don’t know if you’re old enough but the snow storm of 1967 was one of the worst ever. People abandoned their cars in the middle of the streets and couldn’t get home because NOTHING was moving. People were sleeping in hotel lobbies because there were no rooms available and no place for anybody to go. People were taking complete strangers into their homes. We were totally stranded for three days before they got some snow plows down from Wisconsin to get the streets cleared. They had to plow as they came to get to The Loop. And they had to have tow trucks to move the abandoned cars so they could plow. Boy, what a mess that was!
And people wondered why we moved to California that same year! Ha!
I was 10 in the storm of 67. Being that age I thought it was neat. My dad stayed home from work as did all the rest of the dads in the neighborhood and no school. We lived in Roseland on 105th place off of Wentworth. Our street was 2 blocks long and dead ended at railroad tracks. We were on the farthest end closer to the tracks and every man on the street was out shoveling. They started at one end and worked their way down the street until everyone was able to move their cars. One man had a sled and went to all the neighbors finding out who needed bread and milk and walked the 5 blocks to the store with the sled and brought everything back. My mom was one of the women who would take hot coffee out to he men to drink as they worked.
I’ve never seen a neighborhood band together and help each other as they did that year. In 2001 I was working in marketing for a rehab center and I remember the snow being piled up on street corners so high you couldn’t see around it to pull out into traffic. They brought trucks in to tow the snow to the lake and dump it there.
When I was little I remember there being snow on the ground all winter long but it wasn’t enough to affect anything except for 67. When I got older and driving in it I noticed it would snow in spurts. We’d get 2-3 feet of snow but a week later it was gone then it would snow several feet again and be gone in a week. I’d rather have it snow an inch or so each day and just replace what was melting over the snow that would come piling down in spurts.
One thing about Chicago winters is seeing the lawn furiture in the street reserving parking spots for the homeowners and god help you if you tried to move anything to park. The city allowed it but did say all furniture had to be removed by a certain date or it was being picked up as trash.
the most beautiful snow I’ve ever seen was in Lake Tahoe, and that’s including Innsbruk, Austria. It is always so clean and white and lots of it. Especially when the sun comes out and you can ski in a t-shirt. But I liked it where it was, not at home.
One year in CA it snowed (we lived in the hills about 1000 ft. elevation) and the entire area came to a standstill. We couldn’t go anywhere because of the hills and turns in the road from our house going down into the valley. Nobody had snow tires or chains or anything like that (in California???) so we had to just sit tight until it melted, which was only about eight hours afterwards. The neatest thing was that I took pictures of about an inch of snow on my roses. I’ve seen snow on crocus before, and even daffodills, but never on roses. It was quite a sight.
Your story of the snow in California reminded me of the year my mom died. I wanted to do something different for the holidays that year so for Thanksgiving I went to visit relatives in Las Vegas. It was jeans and T-shirt during the day but sweatshirt and heavy jacket at night. One day my cousin decided to take me to California to buy a lotto ticket and he said to dress warm. I had my leather jacket and gloves and we started out. I didn’t realize we’d traveled UP until we stopped for gas. When I got out of the car I about froze there was sleet hitting me in the face and I WAS IN CALIFORNIA.
When I moved to Alabama people would ask if I missed the snow. NO I DON’T. As I tell them snow is pretty to look at on a Christmas Card or TV but not to live in. If I want to experience snow I’ll travel to it but don’t want it following me home.
this past winter would not have been to anyone’s liking. LOL. Even we here in the mid-Atlantic weren’t ready for that one. They come along every three to fours or so, but that much snow was paralyzing to our entire state for days on end. It’s pretty when it lands, but ever so ugly about a week later, when everything starts moving again.
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