A friend of mine posted that it was the 35th. anniversary of the
Blizzard of '78 yesterday. She remembers it because she was married
that day. There was so much snow that they had to walk to the church. I
was a little younger and it was the start of a great school year for
me.
When
I was in the 9th. grade we had a massive snowstorm that kept us out of
school for most of January and February. It started off as a typical
school year, just going to school day after day. It had been years since
we had a snow day off from school. When it came time to go back to
school after Christmas break the skies opened up and the most we went to
school for the next 2 months was 2 days a week. Usually it was only one
day a week. This was back in the days when they didn't make you make up
the days at the end of the year or have 2 hour delays or any of that
pain in the ass stuff.
Then
in early March I was waiting for the bus and no one else was there.
This was unusual. A passing car stopped and told me that the wall had
fallen at Central and school was cancelled. I went home to listen to the
radio and sure enough the retaining wall had fallen at our junior high
school. Central Junior High School was perched up on the side of the
mountain overlooking Logan, West Virginia. It was built behind a massive
retaining wall that was easily 50 or 60 feet high. We were out of
school for a week while they decided what to do with us. There was no
way the wall could be repaired before the school year was over.
They
decided to send us to East Junior High School - our arch rivals. To
minimize the possibilities of fights we started school an hour after the
East kids and we went home an hour earlier than they did. We also had
staggered lunch hours so that we didn't take lunch at the same time. I
think some of the teachers were more traumatized by the move than we
were and we learned quickly how to take advantage of the situation. We
were particularly thrilled when Mrs. Triolo and Mrs. Mendez got into a
fist fight because Mrs. Triolo called Mrs. Mendez a dike! Boy, was that a
story!
Some
teachers padded our grades, saying we were traumatized and upping them a
whole letter. (Not that it mattered to me. I was an "A,B" student
anyway so that didn't help me much.) We got every concession that a
teacher could possibly give a student. Some didn't even give tests for a
whole month so that we could adjust to the situation.
Then
in May there was a massive flood. There was about 6 feet of water in
East Junior High School. It took a week for the river to subside and
then another week for them to get the school cleaned up so that we could
go back again.
By
then there was about 2 weeks to go and school was out. I started High
School the next year so I am not sure but I think that it took several
months to fix the wall and the kids at Central continued to go to East
well into the next school year.
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