High blasting wind, snow measured in inches per hour, loss of visibility, flashes of lightning?
My cell phone just announced a Blizzard Warning with alarm noises!
Why does this storm have a name?
Certainly cute even with that angry face.
I tell a story of a special storm with no name just The Snow Storm, December 1971. Everything we owned stuffed into a '55 Chevy. Nine dollars and a Standard Oil credit card, this was our third move since August when Jennifer was born. Tennessee, Georgia, Missouri, and now to Minnesota. Between Missouri and Minnesota is Iowa where corn grows and dirt blows in the summer. In winter however, snow blows. Lots of snow. Feet of snow.
The morning started with promise. A bright, cloudless sky. Decently comfortable for a winter day. Al, me, baby Jennifer, and Inga, our miniature black and tan Dachshund piled into the car. In seven or eight hours we'd see our friends in Minnesota where a job and house waited for us. Traveling with a nursing baby isn't difficult. Don't need to stop for meals. Changing diapers...cloth diapers...is tricky though. But we should be there by tonight so a plastic bag to hold the dirties is sufficient.
Half way there the sky thickened and the wind picked up. Near Ames, IA, we stopped to call a college friend who warned us of the coming snow. She tried to convince us to stop and spend the night with her. No, we thought, better keep moving. By sundown Mason City, the half way point between Ames and Minneapolis, was still miles off. The snow swirled in the dark. The headlights illuminated the trillions of flakes. We couldn't see anything else. Nothing at all.
When up ahead through the blizzard - lights! The taillights and running lights of an 18-wheeler. Speed up, speed up or we'll lose him. Then his left turn signal blinked. We were determined to follow him no matter where he went but he didn't turn. Catching up to where his signal had flashed, we passed an abandoned car off to our left. He had signaled us to make us aware of the car! Several more times his signal flashed and several more times we passed abandoned cars.
Up ahead the lights of a city appeared, Mason City...and the truck lights disappeared. No tire tracks in the snow. He had indeed vanished! Left on our own, we ran the snow drifts in town. Each drift deeper than the last until one drift would not let us go. Two snowmobilers immediately ran out of a small building to push us out of the snow. But they refused to push us forward and insisted we stop and come into the bar. The owner cried when she saw Jennifer. "I knew I was suppose to stay open."
By morning bright sunshine replaced the storm clouds. As soon as the snowplow passed, we started again. Dozens of abandoned cars lined the highway. A black Monte Carlo left the pavement and ended up at a 45 degree angle in a huge drift near an overpass. Who knows where the driver went?
So even today, as I remember The Snow Storm, I know that angels drive 18-wheelers and God is in control.
