October 2008 - Halloween is near

Time has flown since our summer visit to the Park in the 90-something-degree heat, and now the air is anything but hot, fall is falling into the Park. It seems weather is something that never changes in Southern Oklahoma, I can remember having four distinct seasons during my years in Medicine Park. Winters were always something mildly cold and always wrought with frozen condensate ranging from frost, to ice, and sometimes, snow. How many of you have seen deep snow in the Park?
If memory serves me, it was the winter of 1959 that it snowed 2-3 feet deep (that was considered deep) and we who attended school in Elgin, got to stay out of school for a couple of days. That was fun in and of itself. We had snowball fights, sledded down the hill on the road leading down to Ballou's filling station and the Park Cafe, and built almost as many snow men as residents living there at the time. Some of us were a little innovative, if not downright imaginative. The cars had to drive slow down what is now known as Lake Drive (it had no name then) and we would latch on to their bumpers and in the prone position, be drug through the snow. What a blast! Yes, recreational opportunities were always at low ebb in Medicine Park but we always managed to make the best of the few opportunities that happened our way. I was amazed that despite the cold winters in the Park, I cannot remember ever seeing the creek freeze over. In fact, I never saw the gondola freeze over. I always figured the water was always in motion and could not stay still long enough to freeze. The roads froze frequently, but never the creek or the lakes, go figure.

Does anyone recall snow events in the Park? Ever? Were we old timers the only residents in Park history to see deep snow? How about icing of the creek or the lakes? I have been gone from the Park several decades and I am wondering if the Park has had snow, say, in the past ten years or so?