Snow Day! 2-22-22

      In my last visit with the  doctor, who supervises my radiation, he said missing an appointment isn't serious, it's just made up at the end. With that information I declared today a "snow day" and called the clinic and said that I wasn't coming because its been snowing all day. Why drive across town in the snow?

     Snow day reminds me of my childhood when blizzards would blow for two or more days. Our farm yard was surrounded on the south, west and north but a dense grove of trees. So our house, yard and barn were well protected. A lasting memory is the wind howling in those trees. Of course school was called off until the storm subsided. Yippee!

    In a recent conversation with Frode we were talking about the winter of 1948-49, which was exceptionally snowy. So much snow that the winter that the National Guard opened the roads with their bulldozers. On our way to school, walking of course, we could step over the telephone lines on the snow drifts.

   That winter Frode, a WW II, bomber pilot in Asia, was back at his home in Westhope, N.D., about ten miles from the border of Manitoba. He was giving flying lessons at Westhope's Airport. With the snow shutting things down, and his airplane equipped with skis, he was called into service with his plane. He delivered cream from farms to the creamery, carried baled hay to cattle in the field, and the mailman rode with him and dropped mail to isolated farms.

   There was an electric outage in the countryside. The electric lineman approached Frode about helping restore power. They tied an electricity pole to the skis and took off. Flying low along the electric line they came to a broken pole. With the plane landed nearby the lineman climbed the broken pole. Soon there was a flash of sparks by the man. He went limp for a little while, came too, climbed off the pole and into the plane. At the doctor's office it was discovered that his toes were burned where the electricity had exited his body.

    For 30 (?) years Frode and I played golf together but these were stories I'd never heard. He had talked a lot about his wartime flying experiences in Asia, where he flew a Douglas A-20.

Takk for alt,

Al

This Douglas A-20 is in the Air Force Museum, Dayton, OH.