SNOW DAY

In 1959, the old one-room Springbrook Prairie Schoolhouse on Naperville-Plainfield Road was dwarfed by expansive acreage of field corn everywhere you looked.  Only a few distant farms could be seen dotting the farthest edge of the horizon.  When my parents proposed buying the abandoned building from Grandpa Ory to remodel it into a home for us, I jumped in the air and yelled, "Let's do it!"  In a spout of sibling rivalry, I quickly chose the front upstairs bedroom.  That was my downfall.  As I lay shivering in bed each night, cold winter winds whipped across the barren fields and smacked into our house with a vengeance.  Storm windows rattled.  Wind screeched and whistled through the window frames.  Then the big, old-fashioned Christmas lights that Dad lovingly ran up the corner and across the gable end of the house came loose, destined to keep me awake the rest of the winter.  During the first snowstorm we watched through the kitchen window towards 75th Street.  Snow blasted across the road, working to block our view.  Mom yelled as we watched a car skidding before being thrust sideways into a deep snow-covered ditch.  Fifteen minutes later we saw a farmer using his tractor to pull the car out.  Soon afterwards, another car veered into the ditch.  It would be a long night for that farmer.  With school closed the next day, my brother and I attacked four-foot high snow drifts to make snow caves big enough for the two of us.  They were eerily warm inside.  We trudged farther down the road to Grandpa's farm where we found humungous icicles dangling from rooftops.  We helped ourselves to two of them and sucked on them like candy.  Weather forecasters didn't give out wind chill temperatures in those days, but when the wet bottom edge of our pant legs became frozen stiff, we knew it was time to go back home to get warm.