I, Best Girl, grew up just down the block from here. I spent many a cold winter's morning (you know what those are like) waiting for the bus to take me to Archbishop Murray High School. This was the first stop in the morning and the last stop in the afternoon. So would that make me like FILO inventory?
One day stands out in my memory. This is ancient history, before the first dinosaur egg hatched. Can you imagine a time before email, text messaging or robo calls? In otherwords, a more civilised time, although with certain drawbacks. This particular morning was cold, very cold, very very cold, we're talking colder than a mother-in-law's kiss cold. We don't actually know what that's like because we both got on well with our mothers-in-law; but we've heard stories. Did I mention that it was snowing heavily? In those thrilling days of yesteryear the only way to know if your school was closed because of the weather was to get up early, walk all the way across the living room to turn on the television and watch a list of school closures scroll across the bottom of the screen. Heavy Lifter had to watch the screen in black and white, but I watched in color because my dad bought the very first color television in Saint Paul. The Pioneer Press did a story on it. Anyway, because mine was the first bus stop I had to get up extra early to watch all those school names scrolling across the bottom of the screen, hoping against hope that Archbishop Murray would, in fact, be closed and I could go sledding. With so many school names scrolling across the screen it often took a very long time for any one school to show up, and Archbishop Murray rarely closed. Mostly it was rural schools that closed in blizzards; city schools hardly ever closed. But even rural schools tried their hardest to stay open in those days. That changed some decades ago when Minnesota suffered a blizzard and the kids in one out-state school were stranded. They were forced to spend several days in the school building, sleeping on the floor, until the plows could get to them. Schools have adopted more sensible policies since then.
On this particular day one of my classmates and I waited at the bus stop for a long, long time. We waited ... and waited ... and waited ... and you get the picture. As we waited we got colder ... and colder ... and colder ... and remember that Archbishop Murray girls wore uniforms with those cute skirts, not long pants. So as we waited and waited our legs especially got colder and colder. We both got frostbite on our legs. My classmate, smarter than I or less stubborn, couldn't take it any more and went home. But not me! No siree! What’s a little cold to a tough, stubborn Italian girl!! Eventually, after more than an hour, the bus came, and the driver, who looked like Jack Palance, but with a softer, gentler, more compassionate side which Jack Palance may have had, but never let show in his movies, felt awful, apologised and gave me a hug. I thawed at the front of the bus and chatted with him all the way to school. A few other girls got on along the way, but most of my schoolmates gave up waiting and went back home. Archbishop Murray was not closed that day, but, with so many girls absent, we didn't do very much. It has been over fifty years since, and my legs are still cold.
As I think is well known, in the pinball game of life, the Holy Strollers flash "TILT," so we thought it would be fun to celebrate that misery with a cache at this very spot. This is a very busy corner; have fun but be safe.