A Dark and Stormy Night

 

A Dark and Stormy Night

One of several stories of two ordinary women who have enjoyed an extraordinary friendship for over 84years.

We’re approaching the 81^st anniversary of a record breaking snowstorm in Milwaukee – January 27, 1947. I wrote the following several years ago and it still evokes memories of a city shut down for 4 days.

Damp, bone-chilling cold air and gritty snow banks lining the usual bustling streets. It could have been a charcoal drawing showing only black and white and all the shades in between. The sky was gray and heavy as lead, holding the promise of one of the worst snowstorms to have ever hit Milwaukee. Over 18 inches of snow fell relentlessly in less than two hours, and because of whipping winds, the drifts in many places were over seven feet high, burying doorways in silent white.

It was here on the corner of Wauwatosa (little firefly in Menomonee Indian language) and Milwaukee Avenues that two silly, unsophisticated little twelve-year-old girls were waiting at a city bus stop to get home from school. Neither of us lived in the affluent neighborhoods close to our junior high in the upscale suburb of Wauwatosa. In these neighborhoods, the streets were wide with huge elm trees, bare branches casting shadows on lovely lamp-lit homes with fires blazing and cocktails being served before dinner. Marlene’s home was a two-bedroom attic flat on 69th Street, and I lived in a pseudo Cape Cod bungalow on 62nd Street. Her house was quiet and organized, and mine was crowded, chaotic, and noisy.

We stopped talking and laughing long enough to realize that there would be no bus. The streets were eerily quiet. There was that unique soft light and muted sound that comes only in snow-blanketed places. No time to appreciate it — we needed to walk home to the Wolfmans’ flat, seven blocks closer than my house. Closer, however, we still had over two miles to walk. The drifts were making sidewalks, walkways, and streets swirl together into one icy white desert.

Marlene and I trudged silently and purposefully on our perilous little trip through the darkened, hushed streets. I think we were no more than a block from the little attic flat when my snow-filled boot slipped off and was lost forever — or at least until the spring thaw. All my courage and resolve left with the boot.

“Marlene, I can’t walk any further — go without me.”

We were both crying, and she, as she had done before and many times later, gave me courage. She said, “I’ll carry you!” She couldn’t, and she didn’t, but hearing the words made me want to keep going. In some ways, she did carry me.

We had been walking for almost three hours when we got to the yellow glow of the front door, and Mrs. Wolfman was waiting at the top of the stairs. I think I saw a faint smile and heard a fainter sigh of relief. Then things became normal. She yelled down, “You two dummies! And, Suzanne, your mother thinks you’re a dummy too!”, adding support to her opinion. This is the way it was in 1947.

Later that night, Marlene and I, and Marlene’s younger sister — known as the brat — tucked ourselves into bed, actually twin beds pushed together, our little bodies lying crosswise, cozy and warm under a big, soft quilt. It was a long time before I remember feeling quite so happy.

Epilogue

Milwaukee and the suburbs were completely shut down for the next several days.