Dennis McCann: Celebrating the plowboys with sax tunes and pickles

Originally published Nov. 11, 2008

Everybody talks about the weather but, well, everybody talks about it.

I had to laugh yesterday when I read the latest forecast from the National Weather Service, which has concluded that this winter will “almost certainly” be less snowy than last year’s. First off, any forecast with an “almost certainly” in it comes with a built-in excuse. And since last year’s 101.4 inches of snow set a record for Madison and Milwaukee’s 99.1 inches was similarly twice the yearly average, even I could have predicted this year will “probably” be less snowy.

More weather talk. In the same paper I saw that Gov. Jim Doyle has declared Wednesday as “Snowplow Driver Appreciation Day,” which as holidays go at least has the virtue of not eliminating mail delivery and closing the courthouse. Sorry, though. I’m not attending the snowplow driver appreciation parade, not after remembering how the streets in Madison were allowed to rut early and rut often last year. Don’t take it personally, plowboys. I didn’t celebrate Saxophone Day on Nov. 6 and won’t be joining the International Pickle Day (it’s true, and you can look it up) festivities on Nov. 14, either. Here’s the deal: keep the streets clean this year and I’ll appreciate you in the spring.

Besides, we’re all weather wimps these days. I’ve been reading a collection of history columns about early Bayfield written in the 1950s by a local newspaperwoman named Eleanor Knight, who devoted one chapter to the diaries of one Mrs. Andrew Tate. You want real winter? Here are some excerpts from Mrs. Tate’s winter of 1876.

March 16 – “A terrible northeaster. Snow blowing and drifting…kitchen and dining room windows entirely hidden by a huge drift. Did my work by candle light.”

March 18 – “Never saw such immense drifts as are everywhere in town.”

April 20 – “Ice very poor. A team was drowned this afternoon.”

May 7 – “Found upon waking this morning a cheerless northeast rainstorm…the ‘Mary Groch’ left the dock to assist the ‘Mary Ann’ which was being carried away with the ice.”

May 16 – “A gloomy, cheerless day. Bay full of heavy lake ice.”

May 18 – “Tug attempted to go to Ashland. Was prevented by ice.” Two days later, “The ‘Groch’ came in. Reported seven boats between here and Duluth locked in the ice.”

May 28- “…this afternoon as we came from Sabbath School the wind changed and the thermometer fell 26 degrees in 15 minutes.”

You get the idea. On June 2 – yes, June! - a tug attempted to go to Ashland but was turned back by ice. More ice formed around the dock on June 4, and three days later Mrs. Tate wrote, “It is so discouraging…Gardens are suffering from the cold. Bay FULL of icebergs and more coming. Almost sick with a headache.” Eventually that summer did come, but by October Mrs. Tate was again lamenting foul weather, and a year later when a cold winter again refused to yield, even in May, poor Mrs. Tate said, “No wonder people commit suicide in London on account of gloomy weather.”

Elsewhere in the book was a description of the year of the Big Snow, when snow began falling on a Wednesday and didn’t allow crews to start clearing the streets until Sunday. Mayor Wachsmuth dispatched the big snow scraper, the account said. “Two teams in trio and four in pairs, a total of fourteen horses, were required to drag the plow. The same performance was repeated Saturday.”

So, that’s real winter. I wonder if anyone ever held an appreciation day for those poor horses.