On this day…
…I was in my last semester of undergrad, with little to no idea what I was going to do after graduation. Thankfully, somewhere around that time, my advisors at got me to apply to grad school. I remember that winter well, as it was marked by a massive winter storm that prevented me from visiting all the programs on my list. I chose IU over Buffalo, sight unseen, based in large part on the fact the chair said he rarely had to shovel snow (rarely compared to Buffalo, perhaps, but to this day I resent the understatement this would turn out to be). The last storm of this severity, the infamous ice storm of 1991, happened the same week my beloved grandfather, Ruth’s husband of nearly five decades, passed away.1
Historically, surprisingly little came up when I Googled this date. I did learn, however, that the #1 song was Whitney Houston’s cover of the Dolly Parton song, “I Will Always Love You” and that the low-budget film El Mariachi, which debuted at the Toronto Film Festival on January 8, was one of that year’s sleeper hits. Reading both those things sent me on some pretty incredible trips down memory lane.
However, in keeping with the 2024 reboot of the reboot, this post is not about me. Here’s Ruth.
Rural Reflections
By Ruth Dennis
January 10, 1993. The month looms long ahead. There is both and uncertainty and an unchanging pattern as we find ourselves almost mid-January.
Every year at this time in mid-January, life here in the country is centered not around the calendar but on the weather itself. Almost every personal event, from going to town for groceries to hosting a party or meetings is prefaced with the clause, “If the roads are good.”
Weather forecasts become as important as world news. The last routine at night is to check the barometer and the thermometer. In the morning, both are checked again. If the barometer has started to rise, there is the comforting assurance that the winds will calm or the skies might clear.
Some of this concern about the roads and the weather as they pertain to individual happenings intensifies with the age of the individual. As we grow older, we are less willing or able to brave the elements of winter. We are content—well, almost—to stay at home with no complaints about this d--- weather.2
Yet we all have memories of driving when winter was at its worst. Some of us remember “backing down the augerhole” (Route 36) at South Canisteo and heading back to Canisteo to take the Greenwood Road (Route 248) to Jasper.
Everyone who lives in our “high country” has a legion of these tales that are dusted off every January for re-telling. Each year, most encounter new winter driving experiences to add.
Many of us, for a few or more years, headed south about this time of year. We were jubilant in our escape from winter, but never had full confidence until we were deep in the Carolinas.
Whenever and wherever senior citizen gather in mid-January, these trips to Florida and any roadside adventures are recounted. In the telling the dialogue becomes, “Well I can top that—in the winter of ’85….”
Again, there is a pattern to our years as “snowbirds.” That first year in Florida, many of us were homesick and counted the weeks until we could return, even if it meant coming back to winter in early March. Soon, we became more settled with these winters away and adopted new friends and adapted to new activities.
Then come the years when we choose to stay home, usually for reasons of health or advancing years. But the memories keep us warm.
Mid-January is unpredictable, with its unreal days of 50-degree temperatures followed by those of bitter cold. The snow falls, then blows, then melts—all with a capricious timetable that we cannot control.
The scholastic basketball season has heated up. However, with the many holiday tournaments, it really only slowed slightly. Now families juggle sons’ and daughters’ team schedules. Some tell of going to a game “just about every night in the week.”
Basketball fever is as intense in many of our Southern Tier school districts as it has ever been in fabled Indiana.3 Those who no longer have sons or daughters or grandchildren on the teams still attend as many games as possible.
There are the rest of us who eagerly await the newspaper to see if “our team” won. There is a community pride that cannot be matched—a pride that rejoices with each victory and that remains loyal with the defeats.
We have still another measure for these days from the beginning of the year to mid-month. The mailman has delivered our state and federal income tax forms. True, they aren’t due for a couple months, but they sit on the desk, a silent reminder of a job to be done.
Our county and town taxes have also arrive in the mail in the early days of January. They serve as another reminder of our financial responsibility.
The winter weather, basketball, income and tax notices. They are part of the pattern of life in each mid-January. Some things never change.
-----
Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator
Coming next week: January 20, 1989
To be fair, there may have been a winter storm in 1992, but I was in France and therefore blissfully unaware.
Can I just say that I love that my grandmother found it as hard to avoid curse words as I do?
Indiana? Really? I know she had a brother there, but did Ruth somehow know something I myself did not?