Commemorations and the Anatomy of a Storm

 

Last week we had some significant commemorations. February 2nd was Groundhog Day. We kept the day in our usual way – by paying little heed to what Punxutawney Phil predicted since we already know that, no matter what, we have at least six more weeks of winter ahead of us here. It was actually a mild day as far winter goes, cloudy but in the high 30's. And, in keeping with family tradition, we watched the movie Groundhog Day. I don’t remember when I first saw Groundhog Day. It was released in February 1993 and I don’t think I saw it at a theater. We probably first watched it when it was released on VHS later that year and we rented it from Blockbuster or whatever now defunct video rental we were using then. Later, we bought a copy and it became our family tradition to watch it every year on Groundhog Day. It was a hit when it was released and its popularity has grown over the years. Many critics classify it as one of the greatest comedies of all time. To me it is more than just a comedy, although it certainly is that. It has some deeper meaning too. In the film Phil Connors, a shallow, self-centered TV weather man, gets trapped in a time loop where he spends approximately 12,400 days or nearly 34 years repeating Ground Hog day until he stops using the time loops to indulge his own desires and instead uses them to help others. We love this movie and we look forward to watching it every year on Groundhog Day.

February 2nd was also the day for a personal commemoration. On February 2, 1978, I entered the Language Training Mission in Provo, Utah, (now called the Mission Training Center) to begin my two year mission to Japan. It was actually to begin my mission to Thailand, but two weeks later my call was changed to Japan because we couldn’t get visas into Thailand. That day, and the two years that followed, had a great impact on my life. Now, forty-four years later, I look back and wonder at how young and ignorant I was, how full of hope and anxiety. One of the best things to come from those years was meeting a fellow missionary who became and still is my friend after all these years. Jay and I correspond regularly. We play an online word game against each other every day. And whenever I’m in Utah I try to meet up with him. He has tried to come to Gold to visit, but circumstances have prevented that so far. Maybe this year.

Leaving home to serve my mission.

The missionaries in my Japanese group. I am fourth from the left in back, Jay is fifth in front of me.

February 3rd had double significance. First, it was Mid-Winter Day, the midpoint in the calendrical reckoning of winter. On that day we were exactly halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. Winter, as if sensing the significance of the day, asserted its wintry-ness with a storm. More about that later.

Dawn on Monday.

February 3rd was also the (somewhat) famous Day the Music Died. On February 3, 1959, American rock and roll musicians Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and “The Big Bopper” J. P. Richardson, were killed in a plane crash near Clear Lake, Iowa, along with their pilot, Roger Peterson. At the time, Holly and his band, which consisted of Waylon Jennings, Tommy Allsup, and Carl Bunch, were playing on the “Winter Dance Party” tour across the Midwest. Ritchie Valens, J. P. Richardson, and Dion and the Belmonts had also joined the tour. After performing at Clear Lake, and frustrated by the cold, uncomfortable tour buses, Buddy Holly decided to charter a plane to take them to their next venue in Moorhead, Minnesota. There was only room for the pilot and three passengers on the plane, a Beechcraft Bonanza. Waylon Jennings was supposed to fly, but he swapped places with J. P. Richardson, who was suffering from the flu. Tommy Allsup lost his seat on the plane in a coin toss to Ritchie Valens. Soon after takeoff, late at night and in poor, wintry weather conditions, the pilot lost control of the plane, which crashed into a cornfield, killing all four on board. The event later became known as “The Day the Music Died” after singer-songwriter Don McLean referred to it as such in his 1971 song American Pie. I first became aware of the day’s significance when American Pie became a number one radio hit in 1972. I was 14 then and lived in Naperville, Illinois, and I listened to AM 89, WLS, the best AM rock and roll radio station in the Greater Chicago area. American Pie is a complex song filled with cryptic symbolism. It is almost nine minutes long, but the station played the whole song every time and we always listened closely, trying to memorize the words. My friends and I used to sit in the cafeteria in the high school during lunch and discuss its deeper meanings.

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper.

Despite the significance of Groundhog Day, my Mission Anniversary, Mid-Winter Day, and The Day the Music Died, the biggest event of the week turned out to be The Storm. We began to hear dire warnings about it early in the week. I kept an eye on the forecast on the several sites I check. They were inconsistent in their predictions. One said we would get rain, sleet, and according to one site, 1-3 inches of snow, another said a foot, and another predicted 16 inches. There were rumors and predictions of schools closings, and expected power outages. I have a theory that I’ve mentioned before that the bigger the media hype, the bigger dud the storm will be, so I was skeptical. Even so, I brought wood onto the back porch so I wouldn’t have to trudge through any new snow to get to the woodpile. I filled the downstairs bathtub so I’d have water for my flock and to flush toilets in case the power went out. I did all that on Wednesday morning and then waited for the onslaught. The day was pleasant, almost 40° and sunny. Around noon I heard crashing sounds outside. It was the icicles falling off the eaves. I took a pre-storm walk out along the edge of the vegetable garden and orchard. The snow was soft and moldable, the consistency of brown sugar. There were deer tracks everywhere. Walking in the sunshine, it was hard to believe a storm was coming.

The orchard on my walk before the storm.

On my walk before the storm.

Thursday morning, early, the telephone rang. It was an automated call from the school saying school was canceled because of icy roads. I went out to check conditions and found that it had rained in the night, but it wasn’t really very icy here. Stacey and Hannah decided not to go to work, fearing they would get there okay, but wouldn’t be able to get home later. So we were all home all day. I worked on my seed price comparison chart for a while. Hannah, Miriam, and I worked on making valentines cards while watching Jane Austen movies. The weather wasn’t bad until around 2:00 when a freezing rain began to fall. I went down early to do the chores and it was nasty walking to and from the barn. We spent the rest of the day and the evening and the night holed up in the house while the weather got worse. That night the rain turned into ice, gritty ice like the coarse sugar you find on butter cookies. About two inches of that fell.

The weather map from Tuesday to Friday.

Early Friday morning the telephone rang again informing us school was canceled again. When I looked out the window, I could see that it had snowed five or six inches during the night. The roads were plowed but still snowy. Stacey and Hannah stayed home from work, so we had another day at home together. I spent more time working on my seed price comparison chart. We continued making valentines cards. We watched more movies. We made and ate food to assuage our housebound boredom. Hannah, practicing for our upcoming Italy Weekend, made Neapolitan candy. It was delicious. During the day it snowed some more. By the time I went down to do the chores it had stopped. In all we got about nine new inches of snow.

New snow during the storm.

New snow.

Hannah's homemade Neapolitan candy.

Saturday morning after the storm abated, it was bright, sunny, and cold. Despite the cold, I went out for a morning walk. It was 7°. I slogged through the snow from the front porch to the road and then walked down to the beaver pond. Then I decided to take a direct route back to the house by going up the bank and through the meadow. The snow drift on the bank was hip deep. It was exhausting plowing my way through it. When I got to the top, the snow was only knee deep and in the meadow it was just a foot deep. By the time I got back in the house, I was chilled through and tired out, but exhilarated by the sunshine and the bright blue sky. I didn’t want go out again, but in the afternoon I had to do the chores. Then Hannah and I shoveled out the driveway. At least by then it had warmed to 12°.

On my post-storm walk: the beaver pond.

On my post-storm walk: the bank going home.

Hannah after shoveling.

This morning when I got up it was -10°. We’re home from church now and it has warmed to 20°, which feels rather pleasant after this morning. Lunch preparations are underway. I’m sitting here by my electric heater, feeling cozy, looking forward to a quiet afternoon. The week ahead looks like February. We’ll get through it.