Some People....Winter Stories

The friendliest place on the web for anyone that enjoys cooking.
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

LPBeier

Certified Cake Maniac
Moderator Emeritus
Joined
Feb 22, 2007
Messages
20,594
Location
The Great "Wet" North
As a testament to the fact that the Southern coast of BC is not used to a week of snow, I have to tell you something funny I just witnessed out our office window.

A guy was brushing the snow off his van and had the engine running to get it warm. He also had his windshield wipers on (a common thing in the land of rain) and was using the scraper end of his brush to clear the clumps of snow off the bottom of the window.....between swipes of the blades. He didn't even realize what a futile effort it was!

Got any silly snow stories?
 
The first year my brother and SIL moved from NY to Florida they had a freeze over night and of course my SIL went out to start vehical to warm it up and defrost the windshield because that is how you thaw a iced over windshield---- as she waited for her car to warm up she watched 3 neighbors throw hot water on their windshields and then watched them shatter.
 
Oh, Mikki, that sounds like something that would happen out here LOL!!!

I was born on the prairies and was used to my mother bundling me up in my snow suit and wrapping me in a 6 foot homemade scarf and sending me off to school in the biggest of snowstorms. Nothing EVER closed our schools. That was grade one and two.

Well we moved to the coast that summer and in the winter of grade three we got some "snow". I remember waking up one morning and seeing about two inches of some white stuff that was more water than ice and hearing my Mom calling to my older sister and I that we would go back to bed if we wanted because school was canceled! We just cracked up laughing. We couldn't believe it. We also lived on a hill so she and I made about 15 bucks that day shovelling cars out of the back alley and corners. It was a hoot!
 
I love hearing about coastal folks trying to deal with snow. I feel kind of sorry for them, because they really don't know what works.

Laurie, I've lived in the prairies my whole life and the colder it gets the more you hear, "cold enough for ya?"

A couple of winters ago we were trying to baby our old van just til we could afford a new one. Well...the heater totally blew as I left Safeway to go home. Our breath was fogging up the windshield so badly I could hardly see to drive (and it was only a matter of a few blocks to get home). I threw my AMA card at Kate and told her to scrape so I could drive. The two of us were scraping madly and creeping along like ants. We made it home thank goodness but what a hairy couple of blocks!

My favorite story to share is the one where I was expecting our oldest daughter. Ken and I lived in a 3 story walk up and had just traded in his sporty RX7 for a LeBaron since we were now going to need 3 seats. Well, we discovered in the first cold snap that the block heater wasn't working well so until we could afford to take it in and get it fixed Ken would get up in the middle of the night and start it, let it run a bit and then come back to bed. (I was always hot so when he got in he'd snuggle up and we'd both say AHHHHHHH!!!) We subsequently discovered that the block heater wasn't hooked up or something like that. Hello? Not hooked up???? I found out later that some cars don't even HAVE block heaters! Talk about a prairie girl huh? I had no idea that block heaters weren't standard issue!!!:LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
Thanks, Alix, I can totally relate.

Do you know that until we moved to the coast I thought the only indoor ice rinks were in the NHL?
 
How about some advice?

Carry a gallon of Clorox in your trunk...pour it in front of your back tires if you get stuck. Also carry a warm blanket (insulated sleeping bag is better) and a flashlight with good batteries. That was what we did before cell phones, but it's still a good idea. The phone may not do you a lot of good during a blizzard.

We've had some very mild winters, and some horrible winters, here in southern Illinois..You never know.

In 1984-85, we had temperatures of -20 degrees and so much snow that we didn't see the ground for 6 weeks. I remember seeing a bright, sunny blue sky on a day that the high temperature was -3. You cannot imagine how many 75 lb. buckets of stoker coal that I carried to heat my greenhouse that winter.
And for any of you who know about strip mines, DH was 150 feet above the ground, trying to repair the ice-covered wheel during a strong wind and -18 temperatures.

That may not impress you Northerners...my grandfather was from Maine, where they had to shovel a tunnel from the back door to the barn, so they could tend to the animals...But it's awful darned cold for us hillbillies!
 
When I first moved to the Seattle area from the mid-West I must have had to explain to 283 people why I had an "extension cord" hanging from the radiator area of my car. They were always shocked when I explained that if cars weren't plugged in (block heaters) the car wouldn't start because it was so cold during the winter.

If they had closed schools back there like they do here (where three or more snowflakes means panic) I wouldn't know how to read or write. :LOL::LOL:

:heart:
Z
 
Here is my winter story...

I went to college in NH. One long weekend my roommate and I decided to go to Canada. My roommate was from Thailand and his father was a diplomat so he had a diplomatic passport. We figured that would get us right over the boarder with no problems. Well it didn't, but more on that later.

We were very poor college students so we borrowed money from my brother (he was in high school at the time) to take this trip. He gave us $200 and that is all we had between the two of us. As we started loading my roommates car we realized that the inspection sticker had expired. We were not sure if we could get over the boarder with an expired sticker so we decided to take my car instead. the only problem was that my windshield wipers were broken. That is OK though. We decided nothing was going to stop us and we would just take out chances.

We drive all night and get to the boarder in the very early morning. At the boarder they ask where we were born. As soon as they find out my roommate is foreign they ask for his passport. Hey diplomatic passport, not problem right? Wrong. There is a crack down the spine of the passport so they think it is forged. They take him in a back room and interrogate him for hours. His English was pretty good, but he still had trouble with some colloquialisms so I wanted to help translate, but they would not allow me back there with him. After many hours he comes out and tells me that we have two options. We can turn around and go home (not going to happen after all that) or we can pay the boarder guard the equivalent of $66 US dollars and THEN he will decide if he will let us in the country (read: bribe). Of course we paid the money, but that was either our drinking money or hotel money. I think you can guess which it was.

We found an underground parking garage and pulled in. We steamed up the windows so no one could see in and grabbed some shut eye. When we woke up we had to kill some time before we could start drinking. Being very low on money we went to a Burger King and each bought a small hot chocolate. It was a very nice BK with two stories and an entire wall made of glass that looked out over the intersection of two streets on a big hill. As we were sitting there it started to snow. it was coming down harder and faster than I had ever seen. We were watching the beginnings of a major blizzard. We sat there and watched car after car slide down the big hill and crash into the next one. We must have seen 30 car crashes over the course of a few hours.

We eventually decided that we really needed to head home after all. We get to my car and all you could see was my antenna sticking out of the snow. After getting it cleared off we start to drive home, without windshield wipers, in a blizzard. We stopped at a gas station and stole a squeegee so that we could at least try to clear the snow off the window. We would drive a few hundred feet, stop the car and get out and clear the window, then do it all over again.

Because visibility was so poor and also because the road signs were in French, we missed our turn to get on the highway. We ended up driving parallel to the US boarder for many many many hours. We eventually figured out where we where and how to get home, but it took us about an extra 8 hours out of our way.

It was the trip from hell, but one of my most treasured memories from college :)
 
We own a townhouse in a very large complex (at least 50 buildings). While we have street numbers within the complex, they are considered private roads and the complex is responsible for keeping them clean.

Well for three nights in a row, always around 10 pm, a bobcat has been coming in to clean up. And each night the driver seems to have hit the Christmas "Cheer" a little more before he starts. Last night, apparently he hit 70 cars! Thankfully ours was not one of them because it is small and tucks into our spot and DH and the other two owners who have cars beside us have kept the area very clean.

Now for the maddening part. The complex did not hire this guy and no one knows who he is. So, there isn't any way to charge him. A neighbours car looks like the guy brought the shovel down over top of it....the roof is totally crushed in.

Merry Christmas!
 
We own a townhouse in a very large complex (at least 50 buildings). While we have street numbers within the complex, they are considered private roads and the complex is responsible for keeping them clean.

Well for three nights in a row, always around 10 pm, a bobcat has been coming in to clean up. And each night the driver seems to have hit the Christmas "Cheer" a little more before he starts. Last night, apparently he hit 70 cars! Thankfully ours was not one of them because it is small and tucks into our spot and DH and the other two owners who have cars beside us have kept the area very clean.

Now for the maddening part. The complex did not hire this guy and no one knows who he is. So, there isn't any way to charge him. A neighbours car looks like the guy brought the shovel down over top of it....the roof is totally crushed in.

Merry Christmas!

:ohmy::ermm::wacko::huh:

Maybe I should be glad the town doesn't plow the alleys, LOL!!
 
I love hearing about coastal folks trying to deal with snow. I feel kind of sorry for them, because they really don't know what works.
Here's my winter story. When I moved to MA, it was in the dead of winter. Because of medical circumstances, my husband and my mother and the kids had gone ahead and were already there. When my daughter was released, she and I flew up one morning. The evening, I had to drive my mom to the airport in Boston. Not having lived up north as a driving adult before, I parked my huge station wagon on the street when I returned since the access to the garage was via a private drive that was icy and it was beginning to snow and I didn't yet have snow tires.

Well, the next morning, I went downstairs to run to the store for milk and my car was gone!!! I was so upset at the idea that my car had been stolen within 2 days of moving there. I called the police, who sent an officer. As I'm explaining to him, he asks me where my car had been parked. When I pointed to the place across the street, he started laughing at me. Then I started to cry because it was just all too much. He took me by the hand and walked me down across the street and started shoving his hand into the mound of snow that lined either side of the street. Surprise!!! The snow plows had gone by in the night and my car was completely covered but exactly where I'd parked it. Then he explained that's why it's illegal to park on the street when it snows. The snow plows have to plow around you and your car disappears!

I never lived that down and I was forever "that lady from Texas".
 
Our neighbour whose car was crushed just let us know that they found the daredevil bobcat driver. He actually lives in the complex and the mini-loader belongs to a friend. He admitted to driving it under the influence and hitting all the vehicles. The unfortunate thing is that he does not have a driver's license and of course there is no vehicle insurance on the cat so each individual's insurance will have to pick up the damage. But he is up on criminal charges and says he will plead guilty. apparently the actual vehicle count was 82, plus the damage to the bobcat.
 
There was a brown bear in my backyard. He made the wrong turn on the Pennsylvania turn pike. My folks were in South Florida at the time and my father would not believe me until I sent him a copy and story from the newspaper that a bear had been in the area. He thought that I was pulling his leg.
 
Oh, Mikki, that sounds like something that would happen out here LOL!!!

I was born on the prairies and was used to my mother bundling me up in my snow suit and wrapping me in a 6 foot homemade scarf and sending me off to school in the biggest of snowstorms. Nothing EVER closed our schools. That was grade one and two.

Well we moved to the coast that summer and in the winter of grade three we got some "snow". I remember waking up one morning and seeing about two inches of some white stuff that was more water than ice and hearing my Mom calling to my older sister and I that we would go back to bed if we wanted because school was canceled! We just cracked up laughing. We couldn't believe it. We also lived on a hill so she and I made about 15 bucks that day shovelling cars out of the back alley and corners. It was a hoot!
I grew up in Denver, and though 16 years of school do not remember a closed school day. We walked to school, and mom would get us off early as it takes a long time to walk to school and throw snowballs at the same time. A big pot of tomato or potato soup awaited us at lunch. Now, where I live, there are many snow days built into the school schedule. We don't get a low of snow, but much of it is at 32 degrees, so we have a lot of ice, which doesn't work well with school buses. My grade school was 3 blocks from home. No school lunch room. The nearest grade school to my current home is around 10 miles, and I do not live in the country..
 
Oh these are good. Its freaking cold here right now so this is just what I want to be reading. LOL.

When I was a kid, we NEVER had snow days. We would just bundle right up and keep on going. I remember one day it was -38C or more (can't remember exactly) but Mom had me in my snow pants, parka, two sets of mitts, double socks, toque and a scarf around the top of my face and one around the bottom. All that was uncovered was a little slit for my eyes. Off I went to school. When I got there, all the doors were locked and no one was there. I freaked a bit and then walked home. Mom initially didn't believe me but then phoned. There had been a water issue so the school was closed.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top Bottom