March is here, and I’m anxiously awaiting my first Robin sighting. One of my March memories is the school bulletin boards and the month of March known as “In like a lion and out like a lamb,”. The older I get the more I like that lamb weather. A slogan I made up is March, marching closer to warm weather. And March 10th brings us DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME, so get ready to spring forward. The full moon is on March 25th and is known as the Worm moon. The native Indians named it that because of the beetle larvae that came out of trees when warmer weather arrived. Now keep in mind different tribes and cultures would have different names for the same thing. One that I prefer to the worm moon is Sugar moon. Yes, that good sugar maple syrup that is made from the dripping of the sugar maple tree. Remember Highland County Sugar Maple Festival March 9th& 10th and March 16th & 17th.
I guess now that March is here everyone has put away their snow shovels and brought out the grills. But not so fast I remember a story about March. It was back in the day my daddy was on the farm he said regardless of what the weather was that morning he would always take his coat. When he arrived at the field, he was going to plow. He would hang his coat on the fence post, because there were times the weather would change from one end of the field to the other. I guess using a horse to plow it would be a slow task and I always thought that was funny.
Now for another March weather story; It was early Saturday morning around 1:30 AM, March 13th 1993. I crawled out of bed as usual to get ready to go to work. A normal Saturday for me with the exception that they were calling for snow. I pulled out of the driveway and headed toward Harrisonburg, my destination the Harrisonburg Post Office. On Saturday I was what they called a 204-B, which simply meant a Supervisor over mail distribution. Now at this time Harrisonburg sorted all the mail for the 228-zip code area MANUALLY. Our little joke was we sort your mail one piece at a time.
As I continued on, I could start to see little white specks heading toward my headlights. Yes snow, not a Postman’s friend by a long shot. Upon arriving at the Post Office, the snow was starting to pick up and the wind with it. Around 5:30AM I looked out the window and the snow was no longer coming down, no, it was now coming sideways. The wind was blowing with near zero visibility. As the trucks arrived, we were receiving reports of the road conditions, of course they weren’t good.
As the carrier’s arrived instructions were given to curtail the bulk mail. Now the civilian population called the bulk mail “Junk Mail” a term we dare not use for at that time about 34% of our revenue came from the “non-preferential bulk business mail” (how do you like that term?) And of course, the big question was “are we going to try and deliver today?” Well, that answer should come from someone in a higher pay scare than I and our delivery supervisor. Around 8:00 AM we called the Postmistress who was visiting her family in Virginia Beach. Well, she could not understand our problem, it was raining where she was, and every effort should be made to make all deliveries today.
At that time a thousand names came to mind to describe her, but brilliant was not one of them. We relayed the message to the carriers, and they also verbally shared their opinions in that decision. Now came the time for the moment of truth, the first City Carrier was ready to pull away from the dock in his LLV. Now LLV means Long Life Vehicle which was a two-wheel drive light weight vehicle useless in snow, but we had it prepared for the worst, arming this vehicle with tire chains and two, not one but two approximately 30 pound sandbags over each wheel. WOW. Our parking lot had been scraped, and he did well until he hit Elizabeth Street. I will say he almost made it all the way into Elizabeth Street but not quite.
The custodians were able to push him back into the lot and back to the phone we went. We want you to know every effort has been made to deliver the mail with poor results and deliveries for the 228 area have been canceled. We sent everyone home, well almost everyone because it seems the snow by blowing sideways blew in on my distributor cap and my Bronco would not start. I spent the night in Harrisonburg at a family member’s home. I suppose the good Lord kept me safe because I was going to try and make it back to Fulks Run in a Blizzard.
Now for those of you who were not there and are thinking.
“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” well I will educate you. That is NOT the official motto of the United States Postal Service, that was from Herodotus referring to the couriers of the ancient Persian Empire, I don’t know what the weather was in Persia, but I doubt it was anything like the weather on March 13th,1993.
Now for the official weather from that day. It has been known as one of the top five storms to hit the valley, some called it the storm of the century, Harrisonburg had 16” snow, Woodstock 20” and Snowshoe had 44” of snow. As reported by WHSV measuring the amount was difficult because there were drifts reported from 5 to 12 foot high, and 11 people in Virginia lost their lives. I suppose I may have been partly responsible for over 100,000 people that day not receiving mail, but I say be safe not sorry.
Believe It or Not
Until Next Time
