Six More Weeks of Winter

[L Verge]

I went to college in the mountains of western Maryland where the first snowfall was usually in mid-October and continued until mid-April. In January of 1964, we woke up trapped in our dorms because the snow was blocking the doors from opening until the Jeep snowplows could clear paths.

The temperature at one point that week dipped to 27 below. You could not breathe through your nose because it was frozen inside as well as out. Our campus was on about three levels, some of which were joined by outside stairways. The stairs would fill with snow as fast as they could be cleared, so we literally pulled ourselves from one level to the other by hanging onto the railings. Plus, the wind howled most of the time because the campus was actually in a valley coming off a mountain that was properly named - Big Savage. How I lasted for four years, I have no idea.