Winter Then and Now

By Dave Haupt (1/24/00)

January 17, 2000, was a day off for us bankers, as we celebrated the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. So I stayed home and did two things that day: the first, a very normal January activity - working on the 1999 Federal Income Tax Return; and the second, a very unusual January activity in Nebraska - watering the lawn.

Yep, you read it right. The Nebraska lawn gurus have been telling us that, because we haven't had measurable precipitation for months, and because our daytime temperatures are generally in the 40s or 50s, we should be watering if we want our lawns to be pretty in the spring. And, since my neighbors on both sides have really outstanding lawns, peer pressure has forced me to have at least a decent one.

Now I am not foolish enough to think that I will never again see a long, snowy winter, but it seems that it has been a long time since we have seen anything here in Nebraska resembling the winters of my youth. Even in 1996-1997, when the Dakotas were devastated by winter, Nebraska at its worst experienced a mild season. So, as I prepare to tell about my winter activities of yesteryear, it seems almost like a dream.

Back on the farm at Eureka, whenever the snow accumulated to the point where it impeded vehicles getting in and out of the farmyard, Dad would leap into action. He jumped on the M Farmall tractor, on which was mounted a Dual loader, and with great gusto, would begin to move snow. (I always marveled at how fast Dad could push snow with the loader and push hay with the stacker in summer.) Anyway, within a very short time the yard would be cleared and snow piled strategically where it would not be in the way when we would have to do chores.

That's when the fun began. I would spend a Sunday afternoon watching my heroes on television playing football in the NFL. Then I would dress real warm, grab my football and head outside to those big, wonderful piles of snow. I would be Dave Osborne, Larry Czonka, or Walt Garrison leaping over the pile of humanity and into the end zone as the crowd went wild. Of course, it was actually the snow pile that I leapt over, and the dog acting wildly as I tumbled down the back side of the frozen pile. But it was so much fun! I kept it up until it got dark or until Mom called me for supper.

Then there were the afternoons spent sledding down the big hill near our farmstead. Of course, sitting or lying on the sled would have been too mundane, so I would attempt to stand on it as it began to glide down the hill. It never took very long for me to fall off, but it was a blast trying to stay on as long as possible.

Sometimes I would venture into the shelter belt, which would be piled six feet deep with snow much of the time. The exciting part was to see how far I could get before the snow wouldn't support my weight anymore. At that point I would plunge waist deep into the white fluff, and the challenge then became how the heck would I get out of there.

The common element to these January activities of my youth was snow, something we just haven't seen much lately. When and if we happen to receive an inch of snow, my son grabs his sled and meets his buddies at the nearest hill, and they spend the next several hours sliding down and walking up, sliding down and walking up. Yes, we adults are thrilled to death that recent winters have been mild. But it seems to me the kids are missing out on something special. We can tell stories to our kids about how we walked to school through waist-deep snowdrifts. My son will tell his kids that, as he shot baskets in the driveway on January afternoons, he had to run through the lawn sprinkler to retrieve his basketball. It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

So were the winters of yesteryear better, or do I prefer the winters of today? Well, the answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind. That would be a warm, southwesterly breeze, of course.

(Dave Haupt is a 1976 graduate of Eureka High School and also a graduate of Northern State University. Today he lives in Ord, Neb., where he is a bank vice president. You can email him at: [email protected])