This piece was published in the February 2011 issue of the Constructor published by the International Union of Elevator Constructors. I thought it fitting since we are being swept by a wave of global warming this winter.
CEI Lakeshore from the East 55th Street Marina. Cleveland, OH
Brothers and sisters:
As I am writing this over the Christmas-New Year week, the East Coast is being pummeled with a winter storm that is being compared to a hurricane complete with lightening strikes, a very rare occurrence. While we in Cleveland have not been spared snow and cold this winter, anyone that was alive and aware during 1977-78 remembers the White Hurricane that blew through just after New Years.
I was eleven and my family and I were in Findlay visiting my older sister and her husband. We could see by early evening the snow was coming down harder and left when we could see only from the house to the street. For the next five hours we crawled along on the Turnpike toward home. The best part was when a red Vega full of college-age kids whizzed by us and a quarter- mile later was buried to its roof in the median.
When we got home, the garage was blocked by a four foot tall drift and we abandoned the car halfway up the driveway. For the next two weeks the state was paralyzed and school was called off. When we did go back, we shared the school with another because there was a “heating oil crisis” and they could not heat all the buildings. The worst part for my dad was when he ran out of cigarettes.
Somehow we survived and even had fun during the aftermath of the Great White Hurricane. Hey! Al Gore! We could use some global warming right now! But that is another story….
Through the Mill 