They said it was coming. In many ways it was like a hurricane approaching the Florida Coast, or perhaps, New Orleans...this cold front, this deep diving maelstrom of Arctic ice air. The weather folks warned us for nearly a week that it was coming. We knew almost to the hour when it would hit. But here, in central Texas, no one saw the ice topped with snow coming on top of the single digit temperatures.
During our stay here at Pedernales State Park this season we’ve had snow once before, a couple of inches that lasted half a day. It was delightful to see and for some delightful to play in. Snow comes so seldom here. Our grandkids over in Pflugerville built a mini-snowman. Smiles graced the Ranger staff here as they snapped smart-phone snapshots of the snow-laced cedars and oaks. It was welcome. It was a short-term visitor, like having Auntie Jane and Uncle Carl over for Thanksgiving. Put out a nice table of food for dinner, hoist a few glasses of Bourbon over toasts, laugh at the jolly old stories from days way gone by. Then, at the appropriate time, stand at the front door and bid them adieu as they drive back to Fargo, or wherever they came from. “ Let’s not let so much time pass before we do this again!” you earnestly state as everyone hugs and goes their way. Such a pleasant visit.
No, this cold front visitor this time was not Uncle Carl. This visitor was 2nd cousin Angus, the semi-itinerant train wreck whom no one has seen for 30 years and no one wanted to see for at least another 30 years...if ever. Angus is the guy who calls you at 3:00 AM and asks you if he could spend a few days. He’s passing through and wants to “catch-up” with family. He won’t be a burden he assures. He’s on his way to his new job in Glendive, Montana. He’s going to be a sugar beet worker. Hell, he hasn’t done that before...might be fun. He just needs to hang out while his truck is getting fixed...can you come pick him up at the shade tree mechanic’s place outside of town tomorrow...say 11:00-ish?
This is the cold front visitor who, when you come to pick him up, has a gallon bottle of cheap bourbon that he holds out to you as a peace offering...a present. Before you even get home he’s downed a third of the bottle...” Sure you don’t want some? What’s wrong, you don’t want to share a tipple with ol’ Angus? C’mon, me and you used to tip a few all the time together, remember?” “No, Angus, we never did that together, plus, I have to work today.” You respond. “It’s Tuesday for Pete’s sake.” Angus changes direction at this point, “Well, ok, I get it. Say, I’ll be needing to spend a week or so, if that’s ok. The repair guy has to order the parts and that’s gonna take a while. Plus, he has to fit me in when he has down time. I told him I was a little low on the cash front...temporarily, you know. Think you can front me some cash for a spell? I’m good for it. I got this job in Montana coming up in a couple of months. Oh, and I wanted to ask you if I could borrow your car today. How’s the missus? Jane, right?” “No, her name is Diane, Angus” you reply weerily. At this point you know you’re stuck as you start to think of how you’re going to deal with ol’ Angus under your roof for ...who knows how long.
That’s the cold front that came to Texas this February 14th. A Valentine from an unwanted suitor, your drunkard 2nd cousin who has come to waylay your home and your life..for a while.
There was a freak snow-storm that hit St Louis in February of ‘82. I was playing with the Goujons, a good band I was in at the time, at the Webster Grill and Cafe when it unloaded it’s cargo during our 3rd set. This snow storm actually brought thunder and lightening while it was snowing...a really rare event. I barely made it home that night. Fortunately, or unfortunately as it turns out, being the owner of a Jeep Renegade at the time I could get around in the days following. I worked at KSHE-Real Rock Radio in those days and everyone turned to me to get the D J's and crew back and forth to the studio. I was a one-man Uber crew, a personal taxi for all the D J's and in particular, the station management staff. While the entire city was off work for a few days, I was not. It was OK, though. I got to drive around in the 18 inches of snow in the Jeep.
Sometime around 1974 or so there was another killer storm that derailed St Louis. Diane and Laura Breidenbach were living in Beck Woods in Times Beach, Mo on the Meremac River. Beck Woods had once been a private collection of summer houses built on the banks of the river along an old dirt road. They had at one time belonged to the owners of the Department store chain, Famous-Barr of St Louis. They were nice enough summer houses at one time, but that time had come and gone. A big-game hunter named Beck had purchased the property and used them as rental units. Beck’s manse was atop the big hill that overlooked the broad river valley and the summer houses. The place was chock-a-lock full of stuffed exotic animal heads and fully restored bodies, posed as if ready to attack their killer and anyone else who happened by. The song, “Bungalow Bill” from the Beatles White Album always came to my mind when making the trip up there.
Most of the folks who lived in that little collection of fallen-down bungalows were basically river gypsies and hillbilly pirates. We were in our early 20’s. Bob Breidenbach and I were playing music for a living and we had nothing. Diane and Laura had jobs and could afford the rent at Beck Woods. Bob and I loved it. We could hang out there with our girl friends. Big cats prowled in the deep holes of that river. We would trot line it or simply fish from the muddy banks at night and catch lots of catfish for lots of dinners. I once had a big one pop brand new 20 lb test fishing line like so much sewing thread late one night. I thought I had hooked a submarine.
Times Beach itself had once been a popular summer retreat for city dwellers who would crowd the river beaches along the river during the intense and humid heat of the St Louis summers. Beaches is a generous word in this case. You could count on a few souls drowning there every summer, caught in the undercurrents of that deep stretch of the Meremac. When I was about 5 or 6 years old a boy who lived behind our house drowned there on a Boy Scout outing. Back in my mom’s day, you could actually take a train from the city to get there. Folks did it every hot weekend in July and August to escape the dreaded heat and humidity of St Louis.
By the 1960’s and 70’s Times Beach had drifted into rural decay. It had become a cluster of homes within a half square mile clinging to the river’s edge, just high enough above the river bank to avoid the many floods the river offered. The only businesses were a gas station, a few badass bars, and one restaurant, Steiney’s. Steiney’s was actually a decent eatery, perched high on a bluff overlooking the river. It was built on the original route 66. It had been there since Jesus lost his sandals, successful through good times and bad times. The food and the view of the river from Steiney’s was wonderful. Bob and I actually thought about making extra money supplying them with catfish for their Sunday diners. I loved their “Prosperity” sandwiches myself.
When that snowstorm hit that February we all got snowed in. Me, at my house in Fenton, MO, Diane and Laura in Times Beach, and Bob in Shrewsbury, MO. There was no way the girls could drive out on that dirt road. They’d probably end up in the river. Somehow, Bob got out there to Times Beach in his car to check on the girls, maybe get some help to them if he could. As Bob was driving down that deep, snow-buried dirt road he saw what he described as a scene out of the movie, Dr Zhivago. There were Diane and Laura, bundled up like Russian Babushkas, trudging through the blinding, blowing snow, pulling gallon jugs behind them tied to ropes. Each was pulling as many gallon jugs as they could, all lined up single file on a frozen rope over the snow. No pair of Russian refugees on the unforgiving Steppes ever looked so pitiful as they did that night. They had run out of heating oil, so they walked through the blizzard a couple of miles to that gas station in Times Beach proper. The gas station carried all the essentials of the day: Gasoline, Heating oil, (apparently running out of heating oil was a regular occurrence in Times Beach), Booze of all types and brews, Cigarettes, and Snack food. They jumped into Bob’s car where he had the heat cranked up to 10 and carefully navigated the twisting road along the river’s edge back to the failing river house at Beck Woods. Diane recalls they also bought a fifth of vodka to tied them over the storm. Such were the simple needs of the day in ‘74 for two 21 year old maidens in distress. They did what they had to do. No Internet, no I-phone, no heat, very little money.
When that blizzard of ‘74 hit I was living in Fenton, Mo in my own version of a river pirate house overlooking that same Meremac river, but some 20 miles downstream. I was room mates there with David Perez and Tim Kennedy, two wonderful friends I still have to this day. Me, Dave, and Tim were definitely a wild breed at that time. We were kind of un-tame-able, to put it mildly. We had this house there that we rented which was situated on a hill overlooking a dog leg bend in the river. The house had bars on the windows and a pay phone actually installed on the wall. We couldn’t afford a personal line anyway. Many were the nights we got severely buzzed there. I had my 21st birthday there. I could tell stories from here to next ice age about our lives there, but for this writing I’ll stick to two.
During that selfsame snowstorm we all got snowed in. I recall we still had Christmas lights up and we fired them up under a foot or so of snow. It was a glorious sight that cold February night. The snow-buried colored lights gave the house a pastel rainbow glow. We all trudged outside and lit a joint, and stared at the spectacle for a good hour until we were near frost-bit. We couldn’t get our cars out and it was impossible to get them up the steep hill anyway to mount a food run. We decided to walk to town to get “supplies”.
It was several miles to the city of Fenton, but what the heck. We were out of macaroni, popcorn, beer, Velveeta, tins of tuna, rolling papers. Things we could afford. (Actually, things we really wanted). We were down to nothing, nada, zip. Out the door, up the steep hill, and off down the snow laden country road we went walking, (trudging) to wherever...wherever we could find a store that was opened. I recall having an ancient pair of those old rubber galoshes...the kind with the metal buckles up the front, one size fits all. I bought them at Goodwill for a buck. I put two pair of socks on and wrapped Saran Wrap around my feet thinking it would keep my feet warm. Nope. Wrong. My feet were burning from the cold after a hundred yards.
After a couple of miles, while walking along a ridge we could see way off in the distance a little store that looked opened along 30 highway, the “two-laner” that roped and snaked its way through that county. The beer-bellied proprietor lived upstairs over the little store so keeping it open was no problem for him. The problem for us was, we would need to cut through the woods and down a pretty good hill and over a long field below us to get there. No roads. To take roads to get there would be at least three of four more miles. This, to us, was a no-brainer. We cut off and headed down the little mountain toward heaven’s gate, the bright lights of that little store. We were moths and it was the incandescent flame of life. The going was kind of rough and we all fell down and rolled a few times. No matter. I think it took us an hour or so to get there, but we made it.. We had 20 bucks among us all told. How should we prioritize our food list?
The little store had a decent supply of food...no produce, but that didn’t interest us at the time anyway. We walked slowly down the two aisles eyeballing as we went. Hmmm...Canned tuna...Velveeta...Peanut butter...Bread...Milk. Yeah, essentials for life-sustaining sustenance, it was all there to be had. Instead, what we came away with that night was 2 six-packs of Budweiser, a fifth of cheap whiskey, some Zig-Zag rolling papers, and a rather large hunk of some kind of mystery meat...”luxury loaf” I think it was called. This represented the sum total collective wisdom and prioritization skills of three 21 year olds in 1974 during pressing times.
Somehow, by God’s infinite grace, we made it back to the house alive, minus half the whiskey. We knew we would need that just to keep us warm during the difficult return venture. Hell Yeah. The only problem now was, our electric had been turned off by the electric company, Union Electric. This...was not good. Not now, not during this blizzard. Of course we hadn’t paid the bill, but c’mon, shutting us down during the height of this storm? It was freakin’ 10 degrees outside. We’d pay soon. We were good for it...maybe. Have a heart! This isn’t fair!
Dave called the electric company on the pay phone and basically used all his persuasive skills, but no dice. You gotta pay to play with that utility. No matter that we were freezing out there. So, OK, Dave’s nice guy approach fell on deaf ears. My turn, I’d give it a shot. I was going bad cop. I was going to give ‘em hell and even shame them if I had to. Give me the phone. Nope ten seconds after I started my tirade I heard the inevitable ”click”. Another dime lost to the pay phone. This was getting serious. We were getting low on change for the pay phone. We found one more dime. Tim was our last shot at talking our way out of this frosty dilemma. Tim stared at the peeling ceiling for a moment seeking just the perfect inspiration, took a long draw on a can of Budweiser and wiped his lips with his coat sleeve. It was bases loaded two outs in the bottom of the 9th with Casey at the bat. Would he get a hit or strike out? Tim took another drag on that can, chugging it. We all did the same. We looked at Tim. He could feel the pressure, but he didn’t let it phase him one iota. He put that last dime in the pay phone and carefully dialed Union Electric.
This, is what I heard next:
“Yeah, this is Mr Kennedy out here on 1429 Corisande Hills Road, you know, out in Fenton. Listen, I know we owe you a little money here on our electric bill and you guys have been pretty good to us. What, it’s how much? We owe how much? Really? Well, we’re gonna take care of that here real soon, I promise you that. Now, wait a minute, hold on, don’t get excited there, let me explain something to you. You see, I got this baby monkey. Boy, she’s a cutie. My mom gave her to me as a Christmas present, but the monkey was born early, premature, and she got sick and I spent my last dollars on an incubator to keep her warm while she recovers. She’s been doin’ real well, but with our electric cut off and the monkey... I named her Mary, after my mom... with no way to keep warm now, I just don’t know how long she’ll stay alive.” Tim’s voice began to crack indicating tears were welling up in his mournful eyes. “Mister, my little monkey really needs that electric turned back on. This was my mother’s Christmas gift to me. It was her last gift. She died last week. Mary needs warmth, sir...please, I’m begging for little Mary my monkey. Is your mom still alive?”
And with that, Timothy Michael Kennedy, to his eternal credit and fame, hit a grand slam home run in the bottom of the 9th with two outs that cold and snowy night in February of ‘74. We, along with our imaginary monkey named Mary, had heat once again. We cranked it up to 80 degrees. The Christmas lights under that foot of snow on the roof glowed more magically than we thought possible. We toasted Tim and Mary, the monkey, 6 or 7 times that night as we stood outside marveling at how the lights put such a soft and somehow warm glow on the freshly fallen white mantle of our little river valley. A lone coyote howled from across the river. In unison, we all howled back.
Decades later now, Diane and I sit in the motor home semi-stranded in yet another freak snow storm and cold front. This one’s covered most of the US. If it gets this far south you know it’s a big one, the kind that gets its own name. So far, I haven’t heard what the meteorologists are calling this one. Maybe they should name it Angus. They say it’s the most snow for this area in 30 years. The temperatures range at night and early morning from 4 degrees to the high teens during the “heat of the day”. It’s a bear, this one. Now, our motor home is built for “4 seasons”, meaning it’s supposed to be able to provide warm comfort in cold weather. The under carriage where all the plumbing is located is heated from the propane furnaces we have, but let’s face it, this is way cold for motor home living. This weather is a severe test for old Nell, our home sweet motor home.
As I write we are down to ¼ tank of propane, enough for two day’s heat if we ration it very carefully. We keep the thermostat set at 54 degrees to conserve propane. The electricity from our supplier is cycling off and on every hour or so. It’s that way all over Texas. The President has declared a state of emergency in Texas. No one here quite knows what to do. All the campers have left, some in a panic. There’s between 6-8 inches of snow on the ground and, of course, the roads are not plowed. No city even owns a snow plow down here. Forget getting the motor home out of here to go get propane. The area propane dealer will not come out here for so small a customer as us. Anyway, they’re shut down like everyone else here. I had asked the Park Manager if he were going to be ordering propane for the park buildings before the storm hit. Would he include us in the delivery if they were getting some? He said that yes, they were going to get some in advance and he would tell the company to take care of us while here. Of course, the driver didn’t come by for us, though he took care of the Park building’s tanks. He either forgot or was in a hurry. I’m going to call today to beg them to come out here. I’m unsure if they can even make it on the roads, they being in such bad shape. Perhaps its time to break out the monkey in the incubator story one more time.
February 17th - 22nd...
The sleet came, then the snow, then the freezing cold. So beautiful to behold, so dangerous to live in. In most places north of the Texas border, this weather would not present so much a dangerous condition as a major annoyance. It happens so infrequently here that no one is prepared to do anything about it. With our Jeep we have been able to move about as we need to. However, you DO NOT get that behemoth out on these roads in the Siberian state they are in under any circumstances. Hence, we are running out of propane, our vital link to heat during the cold nights. Propane delivery...not a snowball’s chance in Hell. We could use our electric space heater except that the electricity is cycling on and off now every hour or so. An hour on, then an hour off…roughly. We have kept our thermostat set at 54 degrees inside the motor home to help conserve on propane. However, at this point we have enough left for one night I judge. Time for action.
Since no one is in the Park camping I cannot imagine that we will be missed if we leave. Our neighbors and fellow camp hosts are still here. They have portable bottles of propane that they can take to the dealer and get replenished. Since Suni, our daughter, lives about 40 miles or so away, we’ll head over there and ride out the storm until conditions improve to the point we can get the motor home out on the roads and get propane. Though they have intermittent power as well, it just seems that the wise move is to consolidate resources.
We went to the small supermarket in Johnson City and bought as much as we could to take with us to help keep food on the table at Suni’s house. They are low on just about everything at this point and the supermarket in Pflugerville is closed. The store in Johnson city was a relative madhouse. It was jammed with panicky people grabbing everything they could carry. One old timer yelled out, “Get it while ya can!” That did nothing to calm the panic. We checked out with what we could find, went back to the park to load up all the food we still had in the motor home, and lit out for Pflugerville about 5:00 in the evening...four-wheel drive fully engaged for the forced march to Suni’s.
It goes without saying that the roads were a combination of ice, snow, and a few rare dry patches that somehow had liberated themselves from the wintry prison. 30 MPH was the upper limit of speed I dared to approach. Even with 4-wheel drive cars and trucks littered the sides of the road, some crashed, others simply abandoned. Gas stations seemed to be either closed or out of gasoline. I had filled up the day before so we had a full tank. We did just fine so long as we kept the speed down. The only instance in which I was truly nervous was when we encountered the long “flyover interchanges” so popular down here. Your flying over the city on a banked highway a hundred feet over the highway below, suspended...on ice. That...is nerve-wracking. The toll highways, which we usually take to get to Suni’s, were all closed. We resorted to driving through neighborhoods throughout south and east Austin until we arrived.
The thought of that drive reminds me of the time that my friends, Dave Perez and Bob Lawder, and I camped out during spring break at Round Spring, Mo. We brought swimming suits as the weather at the time was mild enough for 19 year olds to do some wading and fishing in the Current River. It was in the 70’s when we lit out of town. Not bothering to check the weather forecast we figured that the weather would get warmer, not colder. We fell asleep that night to the seasonal sound of Spring Peepers chirping away from the edge of the spring.
I awoke at 4:00 AM the next morning with something pressing hard against my face. It was the top of the tent bowed inward at an impossible arc, loaded down with fresh, wet snow. Overnight it had snowed a good 8 inches. The tent had become a veritable prison, as if it were an igloo caving in on us. We had crammed ourselves into this pup tent like a foot into a too-tight shoe and now we were hemmed in all all sides and from the top with the dense white snow. When you are 19 you’re anything but subtle in your analysis and reactions to challenges. Added to that, I believe we were DEFCON Level 5 hung over. Naturally, we fought and cut our way out of the pup tent as if we were fighting off invading Cossacks.
OK, now what? We had no food or coffee, typical of our style of camping at the time. ( Just go, it’ll all come together, somehow). My ‘56 Desoto, more similar to a tank without treads than an automobile, was not the kind of vehicle that you’d want to try to take on snow-covered, ridge-running, two-lane, banked roads in the Ozarks. Dave and Bob cussed me as they looked at my bald tires. “Maypops” they called them, meaning, “may pop at any moment”. No tread left. Nonetheless, we all accepted the challenge and somehow got that Desoto out of the campground and on to the road, 19 Highway. It’s anything but a highway. There were points along the way where, due to the banking of the road, Dave and Bob literally got out of the car and held it physically on the road keeping it from sliding off and down the steep edge of the “mountains”. I know it seems implausible, but it happened just as I’m describing it. Dave and Bob are two of the naturally strongest guys I ever met. In appreciation for these feats of strength involving the roads, the snow, and my Desoto’s lousy tires, it was I who bought food and beer once we got to Sullivan, Mo and the relative safety of interstate highway travel. Well, OK, it was mostly beer.
So, back to the story at hand...Dane and Suni welcomed us with open arms. God bless ‘em. Sure enough, the power was out when we arrived. Everyone was layered up in clothes. The lights, of course, were out, but they had flickering candles lit in every room. It was as if we were entering a 16th century sanctuary in the Aquitaine, France. (Well, in those conditions your imagination can easily take over, HA!) We unloaded all the food from the Jeep and hunkered down. Suni explained that the water through the faucets came with a boil order as the treatment plants had shut down. Luckily, we brought 8 gallon jugs of clean water with us. The faucets, at best, were offering a bare trickle of water, undrinkable. There was no Internet as the electricity for those service companies was out as well. Suni and Dane have a natural gas stove top so cooking food was possible. We could make it through this together, no huge problem we couldn’t endure.
As good fortune would have it, the electricity was restored during our first night and remained on for the duration of the event. The water pressure was restored as well a day later, but the boil order has remained in effect. As it turned out, the ordeal was not terrible for us. It definitely was for others, though. People all over Texas and throughout parts of Austin were really suffering. For us, we made the best of it, playing card games and entertaining ourselves in the old-fashioned ways of times long gone. Suni actually constructed a puppet theater out of available materials for the kids to put shows on. Characters for the plays were made out of construction paper, drawn and colored and mounted on Lego sticks and pencils. To say it was charming would be an huge understatement. I felt as if I were living in the movie, The Sound of Music in the puppet theater scene. Ella masterminded a couple of shows that we got to sit through while we were there. It was amazing to see the imagination and planning that this 7 year old demonstrated. These shows were over an hour long, had fully developed plots complete with multiple characters, and roles...even jokes...and a good moral at the end of the plot. This spark of genius was a thoughtful and creative mother’s elegant silver lining to this situation.
I, myself, was able to take some time and sit down and make videos of a few songs that I performed. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now and the absence of any commitments, like cleaning up the campground, provided the opportunity to take the time to do it. Diane and Suni made some incredible meals for us while we celebrated both Diane and my birthdays over the long weekend.
As quickly as it arrived, the snow and ice vanished as the weather warmed on Sunday to 70 degrees with ample sun. Power was still out in several areas of Texas and Austin, the water still came with a boil order, and folks ambled back to their cars and trucks that were abandoned and/or crashed on the sides of roads. At some of the city parks the Austin first-responders handed out cases of bottled water to any and all who needed it. Grocery stores slowly got stock back in, though it literally flew out the doors as soon as it arrived. The finger-pointing for the failure of the “system” to handle the weather emergency proceeded on cue.
Back at Pedernales State Park, the camping and visitor access had been canceled until Tuesday. Downed trees, and burst water spigots being the culprits. As it turns out, this was the worst winter weather event in 30 years for Texas. 30 years from now when the next record-setting monster winter storm arrives, I wonder if the preparedness and the response will be the same. I wonder if the de-regulation of the power grid, the likely culprit of the terrible response to the storm, will still hold court in Texas. Really, I doubt if it will be 30 years from now unAngustil Angus comes back for a dreaded visit. Severe weather events are arguably becoming the norm these days...and De-Regulation seems to be locked into the DNA of the Republic of Texas.