It may not rain in SoCal, but the same is not true in northeastern Montana.
I was born there and lived there until I was 12 or so, including eight years
in Peerless, MT, which was 5 miles from the border with Saskatchewan, and
about 60 miles from North Dakota, so we're talking NORTHERN Montana. You
haven't seen a blizzard until you've seen one in the flatlands and prairies
there. The west side of our house would regularly be buried in snowdrifts
during the winter. I remember once as a youngster, when Santa was sneaking
toward our house for Christmas, and was walking past our living room window,
all I could see was his black-booted feet at the top of the window until he
got on his hands and knees and peeked in and waved!
It was in conditions like this in which we visited some friends who lived
about four miles out of town, their completely gravel driveway was about two
miles long, including a short but treacherous wooden bridge about 20 feet
long and 9 feet wide over a creek which regularly swelled to the bottom of
the bridge during the winter.
I think we had been there all day helping them brand cattle or something,
then my folks played cards until 10 pm or so. When we left, snow was coming
down sideways, and with the wind chill it was about 50 degrees below zero
(i'm not kidding!!).
It was about 1976, and we were driving our 1973 Chrysler, so we had electric
wipers, but that didn't matter. Even as an 8 year old kid who didn't pay
much attention when driving somewhere at night, I remember being terrified
that night. I was sure the bridge would be out, as seemed to happen to our
friends about once a winter. They had offered us to spend the night, but
for some reason my folks opted to go home.
The bridge was only about half a mile from our friends' home, so it came
pretty soon. The creek was washing OVER it, but we could still see it was
there, so my dad decided to go for it. Very slowly, he inched forward.
Over the fury and gusto of the wind, I could hear the sideways boards of the
bridge groaning under the weight of our two ton Chrysler as the creek was
probably up to where the tire met the wheel on the car.
Once on the bridge, there was no turning back. Continuing to move slowly,
we could finally see the end of the bridge as the rear of the car started to
slip downstream on the slippery boards, and the wind howled and shrieked
almost as much as my mom did.
We could all feel the rear of the car start to slip under the pressure of
the rushing water of the creek on the wet bridge, my dad as much as the rest
of us. So he punched it as much as he dared, and the car lurched forward.
I should say that our friends 2 mile gravel driveway was mostly straight, or
gentle curves, except where this bridge was. An old bridge had washed out
earlier that winter, and the new one was slightly upstream from the remains
of the old one. So as one approached the bridge, the road veered to the
right, then left, then over the bridge, then left again and right again to
rejoin the gravel road.
When my dad punched the gas, we shot over the remainder of the bridge.
Unfortunately, he had to make a hard left at the bridge abutment, which he
did, and it spun us sideways on the icy gravel and frozen mud of the bridge
approach. He corrected the steering to the right and made it around the
hard left and then right corners and we were back on the straight part of
the road!
We thought we were in the clear, but we still had a mile and a half of
frozen, icy, uphill and downhill gravel yet to contend with in the type of
white-out conditions visbility you might experience if 1000 camera flashes
were constantly going off at the same time right in front of your eyes.
Probably a mile from the bridge, and about a half mile from where the gravel
road met the main road to town, there was a right hand curve which sloped
uphill. Nothing major, but the road was icy enough, and the visibility poor
enough, that dad put the car in the ditch, and we were stuck. No amount of
rocking would unstick the car, and he only tried pushing once, as much more
than a minute or two outside the car and anyone would get severe
hypothermia. My brother and I were too young to be any help, too, as I was
about 8 and my brother around 5.
So when dad got back in the car, he and mom had a conversation. We had
about 3/4 of a tank of gas, it was about 11:30pm, and we were going nowhere.
It was too far for anyone to walk for help, either to town or to our friends
house, as the walker would most certainly freeze to death. So without
making my brother or I aware of it, mom and dad prepared for us all to die.
We left the car running at an idle, with the heater blasting as much as it
could, bundled up with all the clothes and blankets we had, and they told us
kids to go to sleep, which is exactly what we did. Years later, my mom told
me they expected the gas to hold out for several hours, and mom and dad
hoped that with fresh snow around the tires they could try rocking the car
once more before we ran out of gas, and then. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
.
About 2 am, I was awakened by the pounding on the windows. It was Bernie
Dighans, the guy whom we had visited! He had called us every hour or so
since we had left his home on our four mile journey, and he and his wife
Carol decided by 1:30 that we hadn't made it home.
He loaded us up in his big old Power Wagon and got us the rest of the way
home. I don't really remember much else from that night, but I do know that
we never again attempted a drive like that when the conditions were similar.
That Chrysler was a great car, but a year or so later my folks traded it in
on a new Mazda Cosmo. Anyone ever heard of one of those? Well,
long-winded, and not a vacuum wiper story, but these other bad weather
stories just keyed up this long dormant memory. Hope I didn't bore everyone
too much!
Mark mjh
'57 Fury, '57 Savoy, '64 300 (for sale, please contact me privately if
interested!)
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