CHICAGO — Neighborhood Square users had some rather fond memories of Chicago's legendary 1967 blizzard, when a record 23 inches of snow fell on the city on Jan. 26 and 27.
User "LyleDelp" discussed one of his friend's "spitsicles on a light pole on the Northwest corner of Hood and Greenview. It didn't fully melt until April."
NSQ user "CareBear" was a "young kid" but remembered the blizzard.
"No bills, no worries, no heavy responsibilities. And my mother's response when my Dad finally came home from work: 'What took you so long?!?!?!'"
User "james-brooks" had fun "climbing to the garage and house roofs and jumping off. We had a blast!"
Others, like NSQ user and then-cabbie "gershon-mayer" weren't as fortunate, although they made the best of the circumstances.
"I remember the 23 inches of 'flurries.' It took me 45 minutes to drive 8 blocks so I turned my taxi around, retrieved my personal car, parked it on a side street in Hyde Park, and commenced to party for almost a week. Chicago was still heavily industrialized, especially on the South Side and the ambient noise level disappeared. When trucks finally did start moving you could hear them from blocks away. It was a great time to be single."
From user "malibea": "I smile when I think back to 1967. I moved in that awful storm and the moving trucks could not get down the street. We [my family] had to carry sofas, chairs and everything else [that was in boxes] by hand down the streets. It was murder but we made it-and slept for the next two days!"
It was also a way to court a perspective spouse, as "cricket65" noted: "The only place open was Porretta's when it was just a pizza and beef place, so my girlfriends and I decided to go. A group of boys were there and when we left they followed us down the street, we started to talk and I am happy to say that I will be married to one of them for 45 years this May."
Some, like "ivanogre" looked at the snow piles as if they were Mount Everest.
"We were so very fortunate. We lived at Western and Wilson, and our grade school, Queen of Angels, was at the other end of the block. My mom worked at what was then Forkosh Memorial Hospital, which was on Montrose next to the Chicago River by Horner Park, so she could walk to work. My dad worked as an elevator operator at the Merchandise Mart, so all he had to do was walk one block North to the el station, which took him to the Merchandise Mart el stop, so we as a family went pretty much unscathed by the storm. As for the aftermath, I remember that the only thing they could do with the snow is pile it up at the edge of the sidewalk, so you'd have these 4- or 5-foot continuous walls of snow along the curbs. As a kid you were short, so looking up at this wall of snow was pretty surreal. I used to climb up and walk along the top of those walls of snow; I'd never do that now. We took a lot of pictures of it all. For us, a nice memory."
NSQ user "rnccass" might have had the most interesting close call of all. "I was eight months pregnant with our first one. I was home alone and my husband couldn't make it home for three days. My dad called and said not to worry, he had talked to the doctor that lived in his building and if I went into labor he would come and help me. I felt relief for a moment until I asked what type of doctor he was. An eye doctor. Relief was gone!"
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