World Record Rainfall Recorded!
February is here, and I hope everyone is having a good year so far. Sadly, there have been families that have recently lost loved ones already in 2025, and my thoughts and prayers go out to each one.
On December 29th, I had the honor of assisting with the memorial service of Stanley Spitzer, my neighbor for years. It was there that I came across a special story. A veteran nurse, when completing a questionnaire asked Stan if he ever smoked. The answer was yes.
“Do you still smoke?”
The answer, “No.”
Next question,”Do you remember when you quit smoking?” The answer, “Yes, September 10th, 1955”
“How do remember the exact date?”
So goes the answer… At the time he was very interested in a pretty young lady, but he had fierce competition from another gentleman in the area. Stan used all his charm, but there was one hold up. He smoked. So, to win this young lady over, he proposed and with that marriage proposal he promised to quit smoking. His wedding day, September 10th,1955 was the day he quit smoking. Maybe all marriage proposals should have some personal sacrifices before the proposal is accepted for they were married over 66 years.
In memory Stanley Eugene Spitzer 7/20/1928-12/20/2024
A certain Indian Chief summed life up as this…
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is as a little shadow that is on the ground and is gone with the sunset. In the Book of James Chapter 4 vs 14 “ where as you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.”
Now remember this from last month?
just finish the sentence… Plop! Plop! Fizz! Fizz (and what comes next)? I’ll tell you next month. It’s next month and the answer is “Oh what a relief it is”, that was the Alka Seltzer jingle. That took us back to 1976.
This month jingle is “Mr. Whipple says, “Please don’t ………….” Just finish the sentence. Good Luck
Last month I wrote about the January 1996 Blizzard and Flood. A young lady told me she was five years old and remembered walking across the top of fence rows on the snow drifts. Yes, that was one to remember.
While researching the data I provided, I came across something that sent chills up my spine. A report from August of 1969 from the National Weather Bureau disclosed that Hurricane Camile dumped a WORLD RECORD 31 inches of rain in five hours on August 20th, 1969. WHERE? In the Piney Rivers area of Nelson County, yes, Nelson County, Virginia. This triggered floods and mud slides that caused over 150 dead or missing in the state of Virginia. Nearby Lovingston logged 27 inches during the storm. Now this is RAIN, not snow, so never complain about what weather we have had. To give you more chills is that the Piney River area of Virginia is only 66 air miles almost due south of Fulks Run. The previous world record was 30.8 inches of rain on July 18th, 1942, in Pennsylvania. In four and one-half hours. Now as I am writing, the five-day weather forecast is calling for bitter cold. Some nights could be as cold as eight below, minus 8! That is cold! I believe it is called a Polar Vortex, but when I was a child, we must have had a lot of Polar Vortex’s because I remember my parents each morning in the winter months would give the temperature from a thermometer that hung on the porch. It was not unusual for the temperature to bz e below zero on a lot of mornings. What has changed to make this an extreme event over the last several years is we have not had such cold weather for whatever reason. And with that people have gotten soft.
Reflect back over 60 years ago when our community was made up by mostly farmers. Zero degrees and go out to milk and feed the cows, wood stoves in the poultry houses and bring in wood for the stove in the house. For some this may not have been the good old days. The younger generation cannot imagine what our parents, grandparents and especially our great-grandparents had to go through to provide for their families and some with as many as eight children or more, and some many more. I just talked to a lady I have known for many, many years, and she shared some stories that were told by some old timers years ago. One weather sign was when the fog went up the mountain, the rain was over. Another was when it snowed, the number of days that the snow stayed on the tree branches was the number of weeks the snow would lay on the ground. And lastly, amazingly, in the old days the farmers would take their horse and a sled and drive them over the frozen river from Fulks Run to Broadway. I asked how they kept the horses from falling on the ice and breaking a leg, and she had no idea. So, your roving reporter talked to a good friend at church who is a big horse person. Here is the answer, they had a horseshoe that was called a built-up toe and heel shoe. It had raised steel knobs to grip the ice, also they used large head nails to put the shoes on. With these larger heads the nail would not be flush with the shoe and stuck out to grip the ice, which is comparable to what a studded tire would be today. So, there you have it–studded horseshoes!
I also remember the old stories of how they would cut ice from the river in blocks as much as 12 inches thick. That takes cold weather. So again, maybe we should not complain about the weather we have now.
Lastly, from the feedback received, my readers enjoyed the Oliver Scudders Bear tract story. I do want to add some to that. I mentioned that the hunting party was going to hunt grouse. There was a reason to hunt grouse that I never knew about. So now the rest of the story… Ed Fulk had just bought a new Parker Double Shotgun and wanted to use it to hunt grouse. The amazing thing about this shotgun was he paid for the shotgun from the proceeds of the sale of the grouse he had killed previously. The story went that there was an individual in the Cootes Store area that bought Grouse, so this was a source of income for the hunters. Good way to make money if you a good hunter. Remember this was approx. the 1920’s.
Next month I will talk a little more about some more extreme weather and answer to the February Jingle.
Stay Warm, and Call for a recorded Bible Story 540-896-4200
Believe it or not
Until next time
Ronnie
