Winter of 1976-77 in Cincinnati

I'm pretty sure that the winter of 1977-78 was the snowiest in Cincinnati's history, culminating with the great blizzard of January 26, 1978 (see the previous blog entry). The coldest winter was the year before, the winter of 1976-77. I was living that year in a drafty old apartment on Hollister Street, not far from Vine Street (my rent was $40 a month, and worth every penny!), in the Corryville/Clifton neighborhood. I had a gas space-heater that kept the apartment a toasty 50 degrees on cold days.On the coldest days I tried to stay as many hours as possible at the University of Cincinnati, where I was studying for a masters degree in education. When I came back to my chilly apartment, I often got into a sleeping bed in an attempt to keep warm.

One night, on one of the coldest, snowiest days of that winter, Timmy Jenkins arrived in town, having hitchhiked from Winona, Minnesota. Tim is now a terrific old-timey fiddler and dance caller. Back then he was still mostly playing the harmonica and learning how to play the fiddle. It was always great fun when Tim was in town. Tim had attended Cotter High School in Winona with Kenny Przybylski. Both these guys were legends in our circle of friends.

One day that winter, January 18, 1977, the temperature in Cincinnati hit 25 below zero, the coldest temperature I had ever experienced. It's odd that me, a boy from Northeast Ohio, would experience the coldest weather way down south in Cincinnati, but that is what happened. I went for a walk that day trying to get a feel for that temperature. It was definitely different! I noticed how my exhaled breath resulted in ice on my mustache and beard. And I noticed the effect on my nose, ears, and cheeks. Twenty-five below zero is scary!

In January or February of 1977, the Ohio River froze over around Cincinnati--a very rare circumstance. This led many hundreds of people to walk across the river between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky--what struck me as a dangerous and foolish trick with all the river currents moving below the river ice. Of course I have done many many such foolish things myself, including walking a mile out onto a frozen Lake Erie--off East 260th in Euclid-- around 1962-63. I did this with my brother Denny and my friend Buster Zylowski and his brother Kenny Z. (more on that adventure some day).

[There was an article, with photograph, from the Cincinnati Enquirer of Sunday, December 31, 2000 entitled "Don't look for river to freeze over soon" that talks about people walking across the frozen Ohio in January/February of 1977. Try the following link for the story: http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2000/12/31/loc_dont_look_for_river.html]