Welp, I was 26 in 1978, when I experienced my first Chicago (suburb) winter with this monster blizzard right after moving from California. I was so angry with my husband, whose corporate transfer had pulled me there. I had an infant, was suddenly 2000 miles from my mother, and inexperienced at everything; our one car was a convertible MG that slid everywhere. To pay the mortgage on the house (that my husband bought when he was drunk with his new work buddies), I had to resume my government job immediately in downtown Chicago. This required driving to the train station in Arlington Heights, getting to downtown Chicago, walking a half mile through driving snow, and being away from my baby for 12 hours every weekday. (That was if I could make it to the train station in that stupid car.) Finding day care in those circumstances was fraught.

We all survived, but I’ll never forget shoveling the driveway with my husband and essentially being in a 10 foot tall white tunnel where we couldn’t even see cars driving down the street so that we could back the stupid little car out. As we did not even know what a snow shovel was, we were using regular gardening-dirt shovels. If I had life to live over again, I would make different choices. That infant is now 43 and a remarkable woman. That husband is dead; life goes on and we learn.

Sorry to go on at length but I’m awash in memories of the long-ago.