133. Blizzard of ’91

If you were a child in Minneapolis in 1991, you remember how Halloween got interrupted by a massive blizzard. Today, we reminisce on snowy Trick or Treating, costumes ruined by snowsuits and the birthday miracle for one Australian kid in Minnesota.

Transcripts may not appear in their final version and are subject to change.

Nora: I’m Nora McInerny and it’s going to be okay. I sometimes wonder what my children will remember from their childhoods, particularly because their childhoods are so different from mine.

For many, many, many, many reasons, of course. I am part of the last generation who can remember life before the internet. And they were born on the internet. I’m just kidding, I did not live stream I did not live stream my births, but I probably considered it. Today is Halloween, and we live in Phoenix, Arizona, but I grew up.

in Minneapolis, Minnesota. And our concerns for Halloween in Phoenix is whether it will be too hot for the kids to wear their costumes. Last year it was so warm that the kids lasted I think two blocks before they took off their costumes and just trick or treated in shorts and t shirts. But when I was a kid in Minneapolis, our main concern was that Halloween could be winter.

October 31st could very likely be freezing cold, be snowy. And that is exactly what happened in 1991, when what was called the storm of the century rolled into Minneapolis on Halloween morning. What I remember is that by the time we trick or treated, the snow was up to our armpits. Our parents wanted to go home. We were not walking back to our respective houses until our pillowcases were filled with candy. And every time we rang a doorbell, people seemed surprised to see children. in snowsuits, unzip, reveal our costume, and then ask for candy while our parents, stone cold sober, by the way, stood on the sidewalk, freezing cold, while we insisted on just one more block.

The next day school was canceled, and we got to stay home and eat candy all day. 

Now, what I love about this memory is that it is not just my memory. It is not just my sibling’s memory or the memory of the friends that I trick or treated with that day. Everyone who was alive in 1991 in Minnesota has a story about this Halloween.

Everyone.

Caller 1: I recall very vividly my parents just giving up on costumes in general, put us in our entire, every single clothing that we had that was insulative. Gloves, hat, scarf, jacket, snow pants, every single item we had.

And then at the last minute, just putting a tutu on our head. And so we were these huge multicolored in nineties, insane colored tracksuits. Snow pants situation with a yellow tutu on our head and we went to our neighborhood to go trick or treating that year and all of the neighbors had dug tunnels from home to home, That is so great. But anyways, yes, I always think back to that 1991 snow event, and how we just made it work, and it was just so Minnesotan, and I loved it. I think I did. There’s a picture that proves it. I was smiling with the teacher on my head.

Caller 2: I was nine years old my little sister was just born a few months before, and this was the first year that my mom just forgot to make me a costume. So she went and out and bought a can of that glitter color hairspray, and it’s like, you can be a punk rocker! And I was a little disappointed.However… When we had to wear all of our snow clothes, all you could see was my hair, so I was cool with it. And I kept going out with my cousins and pretty much everyone gave us all their candy because they said nobody else has been coming around, so we did pretty well for ourselves and had a good memory to boot.

Caller 3: Hi. I remember the 91 blizzard of Halloween. I was four years old and dressed up as a bride, and I remember being livid that my mother requested me to wear snow pants, boots and a jacket over my costume because that’s not what brides wear. And then no one would know what I was, she won. All my pictures are me in full on snow gear with just the il.

Nora: This was probably the worst part about it as a kid. If you were excited about your costume. You weren’t anymore, unless you were trick or treating as a kid in a snowsuit.

Caller 4: Hi, my name’s Molly. I was a sophomore in high I was in southwest Minneapolis, went to Southwest High School. I know there was all the news, the big blizzards coming, and that morning just a few snowflakes were falling and melting. So I thought, what the heck, whatever, this is not happening.

And then it started, kept snowing obviously, and me and my friends still went. My neighborhood friends still went trick or treating. And we were clomping all over, and it was great, and school was cancelled, which is always great, and then it was sad because then I was stuck at home the whole weekend with my family, my parents, because we couldn’t go anywhere.

Nora: We remember everything that happened, and we also remember what didn’t happen.

Caller 5: Really, the biggest memory that I hold from that night is that all of the neighborhood kids wanted to have a sleepover, and our parents wouldn’t let us because it was a school night.And then, lo and behold, we wake up the next day and school is canceled. Yeah. Thanks a lot, Mom! I could have had that sleepover with Darcy after all.

Nora: No sleepover for you and Darcy, but sleepovers for pretty much everyone else.

Caller 6: Okay, so my birthday is on Halloween and, That year, 1991, was the first year that my parents let me have a sleepover during the week, during the school week, for my birthday, which was a huge deal.

My very best friend who just lived down the street, but she came to spend the night at my house after we went trick or treating, and we had to trick or treat in snow pants, And a million layers, and we had to keep going to house and unzipping our coats and like flashing our neighbors to show them our costumes and then zip them back up to get our, and get our candy and head on to the next house.

But anyhow, we made it home, had our sleepover, and I was just so excited to go to school the next day with my friend and talk about it, and woke up in the morning obviously to all the snow. And my parents just said, your friend has to go home now and you have to shovel the driveway. Happy birthday.

Nora: It was a birthday party, it was a sleepover, it was a disaster.

Caller 7: This is Emmy. I currently live in Minneapolis and I also lived in a suburb of the Twin Cities in 1991. I was six at the time. I’m 38 now. And one of the things that, I specifically remember about 1991 was it was this year when the next door neighbors immediately next door to my house. did this sort of I don’t really know what it was because I was six, but essentially the husband who lived there worked for 3M and they did this Career swap? Worker swap? With families from international, around the world, bringing in, I’m assuming, new engineers, scientists, geniuses to work at 3M, and sending off the employees that lived here in Minnesota to go work in other countries.

And so we had a family move in next door of a mom, a dad, and two boys, one close in age to me and one a few years older, and they were from Australia. This was wild to me. Like, I knew about Australia. I had a puzzle that had koalas on it, but that was about it. And so this was just absolutely phenomenal to get to meet these two kids.

The older one who was 12, he was in the sixth grade and in my memory, he’s six feet tall, but there’s no way he was six feet tall at the time. Anyway, he was really excited to move and stay in Minnesota because his birthday was in mid October and when his birthday came around, he asked us Do you think it’ll snow my birthday?

That’s my Australian accent, you’re welcome. We had to tell him no, probably not. Every now and then, you know, it snows early enough in Minnesota that we might see a flake or two in October, but it’s definitely not going to snow in mid October. 

And in fact, it did snow on his birthday. He stood in the middle of the street, hands raised to the skies, yelling out with Absolute joy. It’s snowing on my birthday. I was thrilled for him because I like snow. I don’t think the grown ups were thrilled. I think the grown ups were concerned because they knew what this meant.

And yes, it did eventually mean a complete three foot blizzard on Halloween. For Halloween, the Australian kids, who didn’t really do Halloween in Australia, I don’t remember enough to know if it just didn’t happen in the 90s in Australia, or it just wasn’t the level that it was in America in the 90s.

But, so we had to introduce them to it, which, get dressed up in a costume and go around and get candy from the neighbors. Great, jump on board. Uh, they both dressed up as like a serial killer.

And I, obviously, as a good little Christian girl, Dressed as an angel. My stay at home mother got an angel or at least a white silk gown from somewhere, probably mail order, maybe found it at a Goodwill. And again, my friends, this is 1991. Not gonna get it from Amazon. And she hemmed it to just the right length so that the elastic fell right and the hem was just exactly at my ankles.

It had a beautiful collar and I had a lovely wire halo that was wrapped in gold fabric to go with it. It set perfectly on my head. And then it snowed. So obviously I couldn’t wear my angel wings because they didn’t fit over my jacket. And obviously I had to wear the jacket over my beautiful white faux silk gown, which that’s fine.

You could still see the angel gown from my knees to my boots. And I could wear the halo over my winter hat, but the boots, the boots as an angel. A messenger of God’s heavenly host. I knew that no angel would wear black snow boots, but that’s the only color I had, and that’s what I had to go out in. In 1991, we trumped around.

I don’t remember how long, but I’ll tell you, but for sure I was definitely out there longer than the grownups wanted us to be. 

And they piled all of the snow from the cul de sac in the middle until it was maybe 10 to 15 feet high. And the Australian kids, and my best friend, and the kids across the street, and the kid across the kid down the street, we all dug holes in it, and tunnels, and played in it, and had a really fantastic winter.

So for us, it was great. Except, no angel should have to wear black boots.

Nora: There were angels in black boots. There were brides with only a veil showing. There were kids with tutus on their heads. There were teenagers getting snowed in at their parents houses for the weekend. And there were kids waking up to a snow day. Babies took their first breaths and someone somewhere took their last and we all experience this one huge weather event in ways that we believe are truly unique to us.

Because you know what people love to talk about? Weather events and themselves. I just love that there are things like this. Things that are experienced by thousands or millions of people all at once that are not horrible and that we all have our own experiences of it, our own memories, and that we are all part of this big common mythology.

So Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates 1991.We were there. It was somewhat rare and I salute you. 

Nora: If you are looking for some holiday cheer this season, Terrible Thanks for Asking is taking our Happy ish Holiday show on the road, baby. We do it every year. It is so fun. If the holidays are a complicated time for you, a loaded time for you, you can catch us in nine different cities between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

And there’s more. about that at happyisholidays. com or in the link in our show description. I’m Nora McInerny. It’s going to be okay. This is a show where we are just trying to put a little bit more okay in your day. You can catch us every weekday. We are here to be the opposite of a doom scroll. We also love to share your okay things.

So if you have okay things to share with us, Write in, call in, send us a voice memo. Our email is igtbo at feelings and co Our phone number is 612 568 4441. We love getting voice memos. Don’t use your AirPods. The audio is so bad. Don’t use Bluetooth if you can help it. Don’t record in your car unless the car’s off, but when you use your car Bluetooth or you call in and like the windows are down, we can’t use the audio and that’s not okay.

Um, that’s not okay. What else was I going to say? Oh, we are an independent podcast. We are a production of Feelings Co. That’s an independent company, baby. A lot of podcasts are made by big old companies. Not us. We’re made by a little old company. We’re just a bunch of feelers, having feelings, sharing feelings, giving you feelings.

Sharing your feelings with you. Gotta come up with a bigger tagline. Gotta come up with a better tagline. But that’s what I have today. And I think that’s it. You know what? Let’s say that’s it. Let’s say that it. Let’s say that it. That’s how we’re ending. Let’s say that it.