44 Years Ago Today..

[Mr70]

..it was fun to be a kid.
On this day during 1967 at 5:02 AM,it began to snow.
Nothing remarkable about that.It was January in Chicago & its suburbs,and besides,4 inches of snow had been predicted.But it kept on snowing,all through this miserable Thursday and into early Friday morning, until it finally stopped at 10:10 a.m Friday.By the time it ended,23" covered Chicago and the suburbs,the largest single snowfall in the city's history up until then.Thousands were stranded in offices,in schools & buses.About 50,000 abandoned cars and 800 Chicago Transit Authority buses littered the streets and expressways.All most people wanted to do was get home.One woman who worked downtown and lived on the city's North Side--normally a 35-minute commute--spent four hours making the trip.
Some memories were not as cheerful.Looting was rampant. Long lines formed at grocery stores, and shelves were emptied in moments. As a result of the record snow, 26 people died, including a 10-year-old girl who was accidentally caught in the cross-fire between police and looters and a minister who was run over by a snowplow. Several others died of heart attacks from shoveling snow.The Blizzard of '67 proved the wisdom behind the Chicago saying "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute."Only two days before,the temperature had reached a record 65 degrees.