Recalling the Blizzard of 78

This past week much of the midsection of the United States was hammered with a major snowstorm. It was deemed "one of the worst snowstorms in years". As we all get older we remember how difficult we had it and we often make comparisons to other similar events in our lives. So of course the blizzard of 2011 was compared to the blizzard that I went through in 1978 as a student at Valparaiso University.

I was on the wrestling team as a freshman and we were making a trip to southern Indiana to wrestle Franklin College. We were on our way back from the event when it started snowing and blowing hard. I remember the radio blaring to "seek shelter immediately". Our coach who was also our driver decided to stop at a hotel on the way back and see if we could bunker down for the evening. The hotel was full but there were cots in the lobby. The hotel owner graciously offered to let us stay in the hotel, but our coach decided to press on.  What turned out to be almost a catastrophic mistake.

As we started up highway routes 65, it began to get worse and worse. Visibility was near zero and wind chills were well below zero. Then, a defining moment. Our van battery froze over and we were stuck on the highway with no visibility. When this happened, our coach uttered a line that I will never forget. He said, "Men, we're F – – – – D". Obviously this is a family blog and I don't want to repeat what he really said but you get it. Within a short amount of time, a trailer tractor almost ran right into us and jackknifed into the median. That was our first close brush with death. Fortunately, the driver was not injured and one of us talked to him and found out there was a Holiday Inn about a little over a mile up the road. Given that we were sitting ducks sitting on the highway, we decided to walk in blizzard conditions to the hotel.  Further, sitting there was not a good option because even though we could see rescue snowmobiles, they could not see us because we had no lights.

Wrapping up in our singlets and our warm-ups, we bravely walked up the highway shoulder led by our captain until we could see the hotel lights. We had to jump over a fence into about 6 foot high snow drifts and by that time many of us were getting frostbite. Fortunately, by God's grace (I was not a Christian then either) we were able to get to the hotel where we were stranded five days. As it turns out, we were snowed in with the University of Minnesota basketball team and bonded with them (remember shooting pool with Mychal Thompson and Randy Breur) in the boredom of being stuck. I was able to find this archive from the front page of the Chicago Tribune with a brief mention of our ordeal.

So now any major snowstorm is met by skepticism on my part that nothing could beat my experience as an 18-year-old in 1978 going through that snowstorm.

And I have the clippings to prove it!!