0n St. Patrick's Day in 1936 we had a very bad ice storm and the bigtrees in our front yard were hit hard. Big limbs about one leg indiameter were coming down. They sounded just like cannon shots andkept us awake most of the evening. 0ne big limb was laying across theroof and we had to get up there and saw it in pieces and patch thehole in the ridge. Every time I go by the home I can still look at theindentation in the ridge of the roof where the tree hit 50 years ago.The winter pear tree in the side yard by the driveway is still thereand bears fruit as it did in the 1920s. There was no traffic on theroad during that storm as the roads were filled with trees. I startedfor school with my lunch bag in arm, and going up Main Street theonly place to walk was about six feet wide in the center. I got almostto the Academy when I met teeny childs coming back who were saying there wasno school. I started for home and stopped at the bridge over SuckerBrook on Chapen Street. I went down under the bridge and ate my lunch.My father and brother spent the next three days cutting up the treesin our front yard. We kept hot because of the coal furnace but had noelectricity for days.

I still believe that we had more snow in those days than we do now.0ne time we made a tunnel out from the back door about fifteen feetbefore we got into the open and used it that way until it melted.Another time Jack VanBrooker's automobile was stuck up on Thad Chapin and thenext day we went up to look for it digging holes in the snow until wefound the roof. My lunch time during my Senior month was an hour longand I would run all the way from the high school to the west end ofChapin Street, get a sandwich and run back to school. I ran down MainStreet and cut through Wilcox Lane, near where the Palmers lived,across the railroad tracks and through the swamp where the ElementarySchool was eventually built, then over Pearl Street. It sometimes was almost twomiles each way so if I had been on the track team I would have donewell. That swampy area somewhat below the tracks had enough water in it in thewinter time to make a hockey rink if you didn't mind a few bushesgrowing up here and there. I was on a hockey team and played there acouple of winters. Sometimes we would also play hockey on the lake byKershaw Park.