JANUARY

Now that I have to be outside several times a day with Rufus, I have become keenly aware of the weather. Today is an example of Nashville winter weather that I don’t like: upper 30’s, very cloudy, damp. This combination means that the cold works its way beneath my several layers and goes to the bone. There are two things to be thankful for, however: It’s not raining nor is it windy. Those conditions are the worst of all.

We used to study a poem when I taught school that was entitled “January” by John Updike, and I’m sometimes reminded of a line in there during the winter months. “The sun (is) a spark from dark to dark.” I liked that poem a lot (the eighth graders couldn’t seem to get past the poet’s name and would keep giggling about it). When the sun does shine in January, it does not seem much more than a spark to me during the very short days.

It was in January almost sixty years ago that Nashville experienced its worst ice and snow storm in recorded history. Anyone living here in the fifties remembers the blizzard of ’51, and we’ve never experienced anything like it since. If you mention it to someone who was here, everyone has his/her own story to tell about it.

It all began on a day much like today, but it began to rain. That lasted through part of the night, giving everything a good soaking. Then the temperature began to drop very quickly, and the rain turned to sleet and snow. By the next day the power lines, trees, bushes, roof tops, anything exposed were covered with a thick coating of ice. It was a beautiful scene; many people made pictures of the trees, especially. To make matters worse, though, the snow continued and weighed everything down even more.

Then the problems began. Lines snapped or trees fell across and broke them, and almost everyone in the city was without power. What’s more, no one could go anywhere; the city transit system completely shut down. At our house we had a coal furnace dependent on an electric stoker to feed it periodically, and I remember that Daddy had to go regularly to the basement to shovel coal into it by hand. We also had a wood burning fireplace (to my knowledge, no one had any other kind back then), and Mother cooked our meals over the fire. I remember her propping her big iron skillet over the fire and cooking bacon and eggs. She even made toast in that pan. One family across the street had a gas stove, so the neighbors took turns in the morning fixing their own coffee on the neighbors' burners.

All in all, it was a delightful experience for us girls. I was only eleven years old, BJ was 14, and MA 17. MA had gone to a slumber party at a friend’s house about five miles away, and was stuck there for several days. She eventually bundled up and walked the entire distance home, even turning down a policeman’s offer of a ride on the way. She was quite proud of herself for that feat.

It snowed several inches more, and the temperature stayed well below freezing. It set a record one of the first nights when it dropped to -13 degrees.

The best part of all was that we were out of school for three weeks. Nashville has lots of good sledding hills, and there was not the snow-removing equipment of today, so the streets stayed nice and slick for a long time. A house was being built down the street and the builders had dug out the basement, leaving a huge mound of dirt in the yard. When the snow and ice came, that small mountain was a terrific place to sled. When we tired of that, we could walk a few blocks and find another hill. I remember starting on a hill in the street, crossing another street, and going on down a driveway into someone’s backyard. One of us would always stand watch at the street crossing for cars, but there was almost non existent traffic. The town was practically paralyzed.

Then an amazing event occurred. When the main roads began to be cleared, people took to the streets to see what had happened. The worst traffic jam in Nashville’s history took place, with cars completely stopped on the roads leading into town, and some lined up for five miles.

I don’t recall how many days Daddy was home from work, but I seem to remember he made it out after about two or three days. We didn’t have a food shortage at home, but then Mother always kept plenty of groceries on hand.

We girls had a ball, loving every minute of the carefree days of sledding and playing in the snow. We did have to attend school into the month of June to make up the missed days, but we didn’t mind. We, like most of Nashville, will remember the “Great Blizzard” with fondness.