SUNDAY MEMORIES
Judy Wills
Winter arrived with a vengeance in northern Maine! Early in October it started snowing, and we didn’t think it would ever stop. Actually, that year (1970-1971) we had 156″ of snow. It was piled up to the bottom of the windows for seven – yes I said SEVEN (7) – months. We had a blizzard on April 1st. As it happened, I was pregnant at the time and was outside going from the car to the house, when I slipped and fell. I furiously told Fred that “anywhere else we would be it would be RAINING! But here it is SNOWING!” I was NOT a happy camper
One fun thing is that Karen’s memory of living in base housing is that we were completely snowed in! Fortunately, that wasn’t the case – it’s just that her bedroom window overlooked the back stoop, and IT was covered in deep snow.
We had so much snow that the housing members (that was us) had to dig a “tunnel” to walk through – especially in the back of the row house.
The base had to keep the runway clear for emergencies, so that was the first thing plowed. Second were the roads on the base. Third was the housing areas, and fourth were the garage areas within the housing area. That didn’t get done very often, so we usually just parked on the street. Of course, then you ran the risk of getting your car covered in plowed snow.
The garage areas were also in a “row,” and had the capability of hooking up the engine block to a heater, so the vehicle would be more apt to start on a cold morning. Unfortunately, they were in such sad shape that, while we were there, one of those garage units caught fire – and the entire garage row was completely burned to the ground in five minutes! The fire department didn’t even arrive in time to salvage any of the building.
A few interesting facts:
1. All the farmers in the area had snow plows that they attached to their tractors, and helped to keep the roads clear.
2. Fred purchased studded snow tires, had them mounted on wheels, and just changed out the entire wheel when the snow began to fall in earnest. He was able to sell them when we were ready to move.
3. In January, the high for the month was 4̊ below zero! When in February it got to 25̊ above zero, we thought it was a heat wave and people were running around in shirt sleeves!
4. While it was still cold, some of the tenants of the row houses would flood the area between the row houses and make a skating rink. Some would even run their snowmobiles there.
There were a lot of complaints about Maine. We knew a lot of pilots who volunteered for a second or third tour in Vietnam just to get away from Loring. Unfortunately, the AF usually sent them right back to Loring after those assignments. The AF lost a lot of good pilots that way, as they left the military.
There was one man in Fred’s unit who was a Maine native and really loved his assignment there. He kept requesting to stay, but they kept sending him places like Turkey and Italy and such like. We kept saying why didn’t the AF just let him stay there, and let us go somewhere warm??!!
~~~~~~To Be Continued~~~~~~
Old Things R New 