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Here’s a true weather story......

I grew up on the coast of North Carolina, where it’s hot and humid in the summer, and if we got one snow during the winter that covered the shoes, that ws a lot.

I enlisted in the Navy, left for boot camp on April 26, 1978.

The day I left it was sunny and 78 degrees in Raleigh. Wasn’t thinking, wore jeans, sneakers, t-shirt, and carried a few toiletries in a bag. No coat.

Got on the plane at RDU, flew into Chicago O’Hare. Got there about dark. There are only two seasons in Chicago, winter and the 4th of July. It definitely was NOT the 4th of July. And it’s not called the “Windy City” for nothing. Taxi took me and another guy (who was smart enough to wear a coat) and dumped us off at the gate of Recruit Training Center, Great Lakes, IL. We were told to wait (outide of course) and someone would come get us.

Finally, after almost forever (cold and shivering) we were taken to a barracks. We were issued an ugly raincoat stencilled “Receiving Company” to wear until we got our uniforms the next day. That raincoat was the most beautiful piece of clothing I had ever seen.

Fast forward 7 weeks near the end of boot camp to when we found out where we were going for our training. I wanted to be an Aviation Electronics Tech, which had the schools in first Orlando and then Memphis. What did I get?

Electronics Tech, 10 more months at Great Lakes. And I thought it was cold there in April. I never want to see winter anywhere near Chicago. Lake effect snow SUCKS!!! Shovelling snow every duty day from sidewalks onto piles higher than my head. We used the inside windowsill as a refrigerator, and the outside windowsill as a freezer!!!! Snow drifts chest deep. Nowhere to go, no way to get there.

Luckily, I spent the next 19 years at duty stations or on ships homported in Norfolk, VA. Weather more like home.

BTW, don’t try to swim in Lake Michigan, EVER!!! Went in the water in AUGUST and it took two days for me to find my cajones.