This winter weather season has been one of the worst this region has seen in a while. But there have been much more severe winters in the past.

I will get to that in a moment. But my sister Karen and I were talking about growing up and not having real snow boots like most people do nowadays.

Do you remember the rubber “Arctic”-style of protection that you slipped over your regular shoes? There was no insulation and they were hard to wear.

What I recall is how difficult they were to get on and off. I remember wearing them to school and trying to get them off without taking off my regular shoes. They had metal snaps on the outside that you could unsnap for the purpose of shedding off these bulky, rubber “boots” that were so awkward to wear.

Then there was the fact that we were even having to attend school after a snowstorm. During that era, it seems like we got very few “snow” days like kids in recent years.

Most every community had its own grade school and junior high school back in the day. So most of us were considered “walkers,” where you walked to attend the nearest school. Some kids lived a little farther away and rode the bus. So, many times they did not have to attend because the bus would not run in the snow.

But us “walkers” still had to go. Our mother was one who did not want us to miss school unless we were really sick. So even if it snowed, we were among the handful of students who still went to class, and believe me, the teachers still gave us assignments.

This was really not a fun time. We could have been home building a snowman, sleigh riding and enjoying some daytime TV in a warm living room. But no, we still had to go to school.

Which leads me to another thought. You do not see many kids out playing in the snow these days.

I guess since they have video games and hundreds of channels on the television to choose from, they would rather stay in the warm house.

But we loved getting our sled and sliding down the hollow where we lived. It was a great place to sleigh ride with other neighborhood kids.

We would go inside and have a steaming bowl of tomato soup and a crispy grilled cheese sandwich made in an iron skillet. Now that was good!

I remember some very mild, warm winters, too, where it seems it did not snow at all. We even got to go outside to the playground for recess a few times.

But when it was too cold, there were board games and ring toss (similar to horseshoes) that we got to play in the classroom at lunchtime or recess.

But as I got older, I recall some very harsh winters.

A couple of those I can remember were back in 1977 and 1978. I was still living at my old home place with my dad in Nolan at that time.

It was bitterly cold, and the snow we got stayed on the ground because of the frigid temperatures. It never seemed to melt away until March.

Of course the spring of 1977 came the horrible flooding of the Tug Fork River. Many felt the bad winter had something to do with that. The 1978 winter, from December ’77 through March ’78, is one of the worst on record.

That winter the Appalachian region and the Northeast saw the coldest February since record-keeping began.

I remember our water freezing up, and that made it tough. The thaw did not happen until March.

While doing some research, I found that one of the most severe blizzards in U.S. history dumped more than 30 inches of snow in parts of West Virginia and eastern Kentucky in March 1888.

A major winter storm, also known as the “Great Appalachian Storm,” hit the state in November 1950, bringing heavy snowfall, freezing rain and bitter cold.

A massive blizzard that hit the eastern U.S. from March 12–14, 1993, was called the “Storm of the Century.” The event was one of the most intense nor’easters ever recorded, with snowfall totals and wind impacts setting records across the Appalachians. Some areas saw up to 3 feet of snow, and snow drifts reached several feet in places due to winds up to 50 mph.

More recently, a major snowstorm struck West Virginia in early February 2010, and some areas received more than 30 inches of snow, nearly a year’s snowfall. The storm caused widespread power outages, closed roads and stranded many residents.

So you can see it can get much worse. It has been extremely cold this winter, but we have not had any major, heavy snowfalls – at least not yet.

I’m trying to be optimistic here, as spring is just around the corner. January is gone and we are already into February, the shortest month.

However, realistically, we can get big snowfalls in March and even in April. But hopefully that will not happen this year.

So stock up, stay warm and be safe if you have to get out on the roads when we do get any ice, sleet or snow.

Until next time.

(Kyle Lovern is a longtime journalist in the Tug Valley. He is now a retired freelance writer and columnist for the Mountain Citizen.)