Archive: Around Town

Exactly 30 years ago, on July 4, 1979, it snowed in Lansing.  I know that seems hard to believe, but it's true.  Just a few weeks earlier, my wife, Donna, and I attended a wedding in Newfield.  The air was hot and humid with temperatures in the 90s, but that was not the situation on July 4th.

The day was cool and overcast without any breaks of sun.  We went to a friend's house for a barbecue, and a swim in his pool.  However, the temperatures were so cool, in the upper 40s and low 50s, that no one felt like swimming.  Later that night, the fireworks show in Schoellkopf Field at Cornell occurred.  For reasons I no longer recall, we didn't go, but we climbed up to the roof of our house on Atwater Road to watch the aerial display in the distance.  In those days, the tree tops along Asbury and N. Triphammer roads were low enough to give us a pretty good view.

And then it happened...standing on the roof, wearing jackets to protect us from the unseasonable temperatures, we began to notice bits of white falling gently from the night sky.  At first, I thought they were petals from a flowering tree being blown by the cool breeze.  Then, a few of the white particles landed on my face.  It was cold...IT WAS SNOW.

Well, it didn't last long, and they were only flurries, but it really did snow on the 4th of July in Lansing three decades ago.  I'll never forget it.

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