Today's snowstorm in Richmond got me thinking about a couple memories of the white stuff in B'burg.
Freshman year I was unaware of the corps vs. civilians snowball fight. They should really tell you at orientation. Anyway at that time Pritchard like a lot of older dorms had radiant heat (maybe it still does) and as I recall once the heat kicked on for the winter we didn't have much control over the temp in our room. Maintenance, however, apparently felt that "inside a volcano" was what they were going for. So on many days, including the day of the first big snowfall that year, we left our window open with just the screen up. This would prove to be a significant tactical error. A phalanx of cadets had successfully overpowered a much larger group of civilians on the front lines and forged their way through the nearly foot of snow to the prairie quad. And as I soon sat at my desk wiping from my face the exploded remnants of a torrent of perfectly placed snowballs delivered by a few rocket-armed VTCC snipers, as Ron Burgundy says, I wasn't even mad. Just impressed. Whoever you are, you warriors, I salute you.
The second memory is of "the snow game" against Maryland that same winter. A particularly icy storm made I-81 even more of a life-or-death proposition than usual and the university therefore took steps to discourage travel, possibly even shutting down Cassell to outsiders (I can't 100% remember.) But it was also the thick of ACC play, we looked like a team that could make a deep tournament run, and Maryland was pretty good that year. So an empty Cassell wasn't an option. In one of Jim Weaver's better moves it was determined that any student with a valid ID would be allowed in, and most if not all seating would be general admission. I have never been in an environment more unhinged than that night surrounded by 8,000 snowed-in, liquored-up students. When Sandman hit it felt like the place was going to collapse. One Maryland player - a relatively unknown but cocky freshman named Greivis Vasquez - bounced, clapped and nodded along. Most of his teammates were less enthused. Some were visibly shaken. The madness never stopped from the tip to the horn and of course we won the game. I don't think the '96 Bulls would have beaten us that night.
Share your memories if you got them. I have nowhere to go today.
Comments
Excellent post but even more excellent username, Dr.
One of the civilians had a snowball launcher on the drillfield. I chased him down. He seemed quite impressed when I tackled him.
"I used to run track!"
"Emphasis on used to!" I responded.
Actually, I think I just got lucky that I was able to run along the pavement.
There was one year that they should have cancelled classes, but didn't because it was an election year and one of the primary candidates was on campus. As I'm "walking" to class, I'm slipping and sliding like the burglars from Home Alone.
Get into my first class, and the professor comes in, only sees about half the class there, and goes on a 20 minute rant about those "inconsiderate assholes" who didn't cancel class. Since he didn't want half the class getting behind, we got out early. This story loses a lot in print because of the way he emphasized certain syllables, making the rant even funnier.
That morning was crazy. All my classes ended up cancelled but not until I had already made it to campus. The commuter lot had about 1/2" of solid freezing rain and it was melting so fast that water was sheet flowing over the blanket glass of ice. It was nearly impossible to walk.
Yup...when I got back from that first class, I found an e-mail from the professor of the second class that it was cancelled due to her driveway being a sheet of ice on the side of a hill.
Shoulda been there when the commuter lot was only 1/4 paved and the rest gravel and mud! And there were only the two main cross-drill field paths paved plus one path to McBride from the gym that was wood chips and dirt!
Student in the 83-88 years and I have three main memories of snow/cold.
1) The time it got to -18F with -70F wind chill-- Was ten degrees above zero on Sunday morning. Temps dropped steadily and went below zero on Sunday evening. NeXT morning got to minus 18 in Blacksburg and set all time sate low in Mountain Lake just up the road at minus 30F. lived in Lee with its steam heat. The lowest two floors were ok but on the 5th floor the temp in our room dropped to 45F and we had a 1/4 " of frost on the INSIDE of our windows! Naturally I had an 8am class and the walk from Lee to McBride 100 was absolutely BRUTAL! Classes weren't cancelled til about 10 am after health services said that any one waiting for a bus would have any exposed flesh freeze in less than 30 seconds. (BT had parking for only three small buses inside and evidently did NOT think to use block heaters on all the other 25 or 30 "tripper buses" so they ran one bus on the three routes (l -North/south Main, Foxridge; and Toms creek a/b Loop) instead of 3-4 on each as usual
2)the year we got a 15" snowfall on Thursday and then on Sunday afternoon the snow started again and didn't stop until Mid morning Monday-dropped an additional 15 "! I remember we had league bowling at Squires Sunday evening then walked over to go traying on the golf course. Folks formed :chains: of trayers and one broke apart with the half in the back then running into the half in front lower down. The rescue squad folks had to wade through the snow to get to the scene. Walking home to Terrace View, I had to break a path for my roommate whose knee was hurt. The snow was thigh deep everywhere and drifts went over my waist!-that Monday was only the 2nd or 3rd time in history at that point that VT had canceled classes.
3) spring intramural softball- one spring we had about three weeks in a row where it was in the mid 70s on Saturday but by Tuesday it was low 30s and snowing! I remember watching my friend in the outfield one game where it was snowing so hard that they couldn't even SEE the ball and when a batter hit it ot my friend, he didn't MOVE until the ball landed about five feet to one side of him 'cause he didn't see it until then. (It coulda hit him in the head and he'd never have seen it coming LOL).
I was there during the second event, and present at the golf course when the rescue squad showed up. Being from upstate NY, all my VA friends made me drive them everywhere for a week while all the snow was around. I think local public schools were closed for a whole week, and the reason Tech closed is that so many professors had moved out of town into more remote locations that hadn't been plowed from the first snow, much less the second
My mom's family was from Syracuse with all the lake effect snows. I remember reading about a town north of there that got 11 FEET of snow in 4 days back in the mid 2000s
This is not uncommon in extreme western NY.
That would be Redfield, NY in February 2007. Link below. Wife and I went snow shoeing there about 1.5 weeks after that storm. Were supposed to cross country ski, but she had never been snow shoeing, so we did that instead. I packed our camp stove and was making food or drinks or something on the side of the trail and 3 or 4 people ski by with that "why didn't I think of that" look.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna17094120
Speaking of softball, I remember in the Spring of '87 we had several inches of snow one day (out in the quad building completely inappropriate snow creatures), and the next day we were out in the same quad in shorts and t-shirts throwing the softball around because we had a game in a day or two. Some of the snow critters were still around to watch (at least for a while). Love that B'burg weather.
Supposed to get 3-5 inches up here tonight and 5-8 tomorrow. So far all powdery and its falling slow.
Is the burg getting snowed on today? How's Showtime handling it?
no insight into Showtime's day, but Beard-ancée and I are good and snowed in here. Maybe about 5-6 inches on the back deck
Latest forecast calling for 16-22 inches here in central NJ.
Sophomore year, my math professor went on a diatribe about how he just knew Tech wouldn't cancel classes because of the impending snowstorm.
Snowstorm comes, they cancel classes.
The next time we see him in class, he goes on a diatribe about how shocked (SHOCKED!) he was that they actually cancelled classes.
The Carl Prather Experience, indeed.
Prather for president!
I graduated with A.R. I'm glad to see his legacy lives on, as well as the Prather Experience!
I actually learned quite a bit from Prather. His caricature-like personality made math more interesting than any other math professor I had.
I do not miss the Carl Prather Experience. woof
Oh man. Don't tell me you had him for differential equations in the fall semester, 1988? That would be too Twilight Zone.
By the way, met his wife once. She was tiny. Don't even want to think about ...
My senior year at Radford we went to bed with about a foot of snow on the ground. Wake up the next morning (Saturday), made a pot of coffee, grabbed my tape measure and went outside for the official measurement. 22in had hit the ground. After they awoke, got the good news, me and one of the guys made a massive, well hung snowman (because wieners are funny), and commenced to drinking and watching baseball movies for most of the day.
ESPN was coming to town for the Radford-UNC-Asheville basketball game that night and the university shut off attendance for anyone not a student. So, about 8 of us walked down to Diamante's (RIP), scarfed down some half decent Mexican food and pony keg sized mugs of beer, then began to make the walk across the bridge to Dedmond for the game. As soon as we get to the other side of the bridge, I see a rugby jacket (I played, so I might know who it is) standing off to the side of what was a sidewalk prior to the mini blizzard. As we got closer, I realized who it was, and also realized he is writing his name in the snow. He looks over his shoulder "HEYYY MANNN!!! WOOO!!!" We all walked in together (once he put his...yeah, more phallically driven of a post than I had anticipated) and saw the boys pull out a W. Little white dude for UNCA that night (played at Rockbridge HS then ultimately transferred to Marquette) put up like 45pts that night lol
Because I lack maturity well into my 30s, I still laugh thinking about all the snowdongs that would show up across all the apartment complexes any time it snowed. Some say if you found the right magical hat and believed with all your heart, they would come to life.
I'm pretty sure my roommate spent a grand total of 5 minutes across all four years in the snowball fights because he would get hit in the junk with a piece of ice almost as soon as he got outside. So after two years of that, he just stayed in for the rest.
Any excuse to post this picture is a good one
A great pic. It always reminds me of a Civil War battle scene,
During my sophomore year ('66-'67), the civilian snowballers surged on to the upper quad. I was in my room on the second floor of Brodie Hall and thought standing on the roof of the entrance would give me a tactical advantage. While I did have a height advantage for a few minutes, I also stood out like a sore thumb and was soon the main target for what seemed to be the entire mob. I took one in the face and nearly staggered off the rooftop. Thankfully someone on the ground called out a caution that allowed me to escape back into the dorm. Live to (snow) fight another day.
"at that time Pritchard like a lot of older dorms had radiant heat (maybe it still does) and as I recall once the heat kicked on for the winter we didn't have much control over the temp in our room. Maintenance, however, apparently felt that "inside a volcano" was what they were going for."
Spent freshman year in Pritchard - on the pit. To the best of my recollection, we never once closed the window no matter how cold it was.
Experienced this as well. Went to Tech during the South Africa World Cup when everyone had the vuvuselvas and people would just ducking blast those into the pit
I sort of learned a little about this in an AUP elective I took. The steam heating infrastructure at Tech was built out coinciding with the height of the fresh air movement. The thought I guess was that without tons and tons of ventilation you were poisoning yourself any time you were indoors. So those old boiler systems were intentionally designed to heat a room with the windows open on the coldest day of the year. We were all apparently just doing what the engineers intended for us to do.
Man....i hadnt thought about steam tunnel exploring in years. I lived in Lee 86-87 and 87-88 and there was an easy access point always unlocked between Cassel and the tennis courts that we could get in.
Dang man, I was in Pritchard 87-88 and you were Lee that year? Wouldn't have happened to know Pat McCormick? Know Lee was a sizable place, but he was your year/a year ahead of me in Physics.
Not ringin any bells...i was on the first floor on the washington street side. I was an architecture major.
IIRC, during the winter of 02-03, we had an early snow (November), and there was snow on the ground until late March. It wasn't completely covered, but there were piles in parking lots etc. for the entire duration of the winter. And no matter which direction you were headed, the wind on the drill field was always in your face
The drillfield was so miserable whenever it got to either extreme. In the winter the wind would howl through it and in the summer it was just sun beating down on you. Every summer class I attended I arrived covered in sweat.
I went up for a visit in spring of '03 and it snowed in April. My dumb ass still went to Tech 🤣
My Freshman year was 95/96 and the great blizzard of 96 was over the break that year. I remember coming back to campus with something like 2+ feet of snow still on the drill field. I had a 8AM MWF class that I am pretty sure I dropped after week 1 if I remember correctly.
I drove back to my off campus condo during that storm. When I parked their was 6", the next morning there was 30+".
Such a great time, kicked those civies asses all 4 years I was there. Of course there was always that jackasses that got too drunk and tried to turn it into a brawl but we were usually able to break those up before they got too bad...
When do we do the 4 seasons in 1 day thread? Coz I had a lot of days like that in my time (90-95). Memories...
You could author said thread....
I think some parts of the nrv is supposed to get another inch or 2 of snow tonight