Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Mr. Groundhog has spoken
So will it be true? 6 more weeks of Winter..Think of this,, since Christmas, and mostly in January, we Coralville'ians have been treated to: Snow, wind, drifts, ice storm, rain, thunder, no sunshine, fog, whiteout conditions, below normal temps, below 0 temps, and more!! Can't stand it to even try to think of 'more'.. When I was a kid up on 8th street in Coralville, say, mid-50s, the Town of Coralville owned a road grader, (remember those?) AND a little Ford "N' tractor with a canvas top that had plastic windows...When we got snow, the GIANT road grader would go all around town grading the streets. Now remember, NONE of the streets were paved,, just chip and seal, and they were open ditches everywhere. The road grader operator, Ray Kinsinger who lived in the 700 block of 7th avenue, would push/grade the snow into the ditches. Along behind the grader would come Ray's brother, Wally Kinsinger, (he lived in Kalona) on/in the Ford tractor. Wally had a plow/blade on the back, and he kind of 'cleaned up' the snow not handled by the road grader..This grader was cool, as Ray could make it 'lean to the right or left! The whole big thing would lean! Ray also operated this big monstracity standing UP. It had about 10 handles next to the steering wheel.. Up, down, left, right, angle, raise, lower,, etc. It was fun to watch! The tractor followed right behind the grader, so if you lived on the other end of town, you had to wait all day! Too bad! Take heart when you see Coralville's snow crews these days, as I think they do a good job! .....No roadgraders though!!
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Coralville is clearing sidewalks on 5th street in the flood zone clearings, Why not keep going and do all 5th street to ease bus loading?
ReplyDeleteWith the Olympic games now in full swing and all of this talk about S N O W ... makes me think back to some of Coralville's past outdoor winter activities available to us. Back in the 60's we had that small outdoor skating rink (flooded each winter by the fire department) down below Coralville Central. It certainly wasn't very big but at least there was a small warming hut onsite. With the creation of Morrison park, skaters were awarded with a real skating pond that was at least doubled in size. On weekends there would be so many people on the ice you couldn't get away with "Crack the whip" or "Capture the flag". It really was a place for us "teens" to hang out (if you could withstand the cold).
ReplyDeleteThe other place to go was lower Finkbine golfcourse. I've got a lot of memories (mostly being thrown from my sled - a real sled) going down that hill. It felt like a real accomplishment to remain on the sled after hitting that infamous "dip" at the bottom of the hill. That "dip" damaged a lot sleds, along with that lone pine tree on the east side of the hill. Never could figure out why so many people ran into that tree. Must have been some kind of embedded magnetic pull. Anyway, after going down that hill a bunch of times you then had the long walk across the fairways to look forward to. Good times !