Wow, here it is, January 2, and there is no snow on the ground, 45 years ago it was certainly a different story. It was the great winter of 1968-1969- in Wallace, and it was one for the ages.
The snow began falling in earnest shortly before our Christmas vacation from school. (Yes, we had Christmas vacations back then, not Winter Breaks, so sue us oh mighty ACLU.) If you had lived in Wallace for any length of time, or were a native, like I am, you just knew that this winter was going to be a very long, hard, cold winter. We were not wrong.
Wallace School District 393 had a reputation for not closing for the weather no matter what. Other towns around the country would get an inch of snow and shut the doors. We had no such luck in Wallace, and we were proud of it. We were like the USPS use to be. We never missed a beat. Oh, the bus students might get to go home a little early if conditions were really tough., especially the Murray gang, But the rest of us had to trudge home everyday though mounds and mounds of white, sprinkled with dashes of yellow and brown. Hey, the dogs had to do their business somewhere, didn't they?
As one got older walking home was not so bad, but for the elementary kids, it could be a brutal road back to the warm embrace of mom's kitchen and the steam heat coming out of the hissing radiators. OK, OK, I was not in elementary school in December of 1968, nope I was in junior high. OK, OK, I cannot tell a lie, I was in high school. There, are you happy?
My dad and I shoveled and shoveled that winter. It never seemed to do any good because even as we were finishing the sidewalk and the stairs to the house, the sidewalk was already being suffocated with another layer of a thick, white, quilt of snow. Would the snow every quit feeling that winter? That was the question often heard around town. Even the old timers around the bars in Wallace were shaking their beer and whiskey blurred heads and saying that they had never seen anything like it, at least not since the 1930's. Hey bartender, give me another shot, will ya?
Sometimes in life, the bird isn't only pooping on your car, but our feathered friend drops one on your head with an accuracy that the United Stated Air Force would love to be able to duplicate. The great winter of 68-69 was one such bird. In addition to the mounting piles of snow, the temperatures decided to do a polar plunge, and plunge it did, dropping down to as low as 25 below zero. In normal times, when the temperature drops down below zero, the snow stops. Score another point for the 68-69 winter. It refused to follow the rules as set forth by the US Weather Bureau, the National Geographical Society, Skippie, the weather guy on the local Spokane television station, and the boys glued permanently to their seats at the bar in the Cork and Bottle.
My dad, my brother, and I spent all of the Christmas vacation shoveling, shoveling, and shoveling some more. The wind howled, the snow piled, the temperature plunged, and Jack Frost not only nipped, but he took a big chunk right out of our noses. God help you if you had a runny nose. Let's just say that it was not a picture that you wanted as your defining Kodak moment.
Christmas vacation for the 68-69 school year was winding down, but the weather was not. One of my best friends took care of the shoveling duties for a wealthy lady that resided across the street from us. It was the evening of Jan, 2, 1969, and tomorrow we would all be back in the safe, leaky roof confines of Wallace High School. I saw that my friend was busy shoveling the sidewalk across the street, so I threw on my winter attire and headed over there to say hello. It was a few degrees below zero when I went over there. We talked between chattering teeth about the snow, school, and well, the other things that high school guys talk about. It was then that we begin to notice a shift in the air.
Yes there was a difference. A warm air current was starting to blow, and the temperatures started to climb dramatically, The snow was actually starting to melt, and we realize then what was happening. We were saved from the white sea of snow by a Pineapple Express or a Chinook, whichever term you prefer. Of course, this weather phenomenon carries with it its own problems because it rapidly melts the snow, but as the temperature climbs, it begins to rain. The huge mounds of white snow are not knee deep swamps of slush and ice. That combination, my friends, makes for some very treacherous walking and driving conditions.
The next day, we were all back in the halls of good old School District #393, and life went on as usual in the city of Wallace. Tough, hard long, cold winters were just part of growing up Wallace. All that I can say, is that 45 years later, the weather has most certainly changed.
Cedar Street in the winter of 1913-from the University of Idaho Digital Collection. 
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