Snowed in with Mitch Miller and the Symphony Womens’ League

According to the National Weather Service’s list of "Worst Snow Storms in the State of Wisconsin", the seasonal latest of the big storms (storm number 10, in fact) happened on April 8, 1973, when "Madison had nearly 13 inches while Milwaukee measured a foot of heavy wet snow. Wind gusts above 50 mph.  Many roads, including the interstates, were closed for two days."

This has always been my Benchmark for snow that is just too darn late in the season.

Looking out my window now, and checking the date, I see that once again, we are past my benchmark, and it is snowing, and I remember back to that 1973 storm…

It was 9am the day of the storm and my business partner Ric and I were putting the finishing touches on a two-projector dissolve slide show we had produced for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. It had been reviewed and approved with a few changes the day before by the Symphony’s P.R. Director Andy Moquin. Those few changes kept us up all night re-laying out the slides, making a few subtle changes to the soundtrack (remember, this was all on audio tape), and reprogramming (or repulsing as we called it then) the show.

There was a deadline– 10am that day. Because that’s when we had to drive the gear and the show over to the Schlitz Clubhouse on Port Washington Rd. to unveil the show to the Symphony Women’s League at their annual fundraiser.

Fueled by Tostitos and Tab Soda, we made it. It was a clear day, no traffic, no problem.

There were a few speeches, an address by famed "Sing-Along" conductor Mitch Miller, who at the time was apparently a roving drive-by cheerleader for Symphony Fundraising campaigns, and finally– hours later– our show ran. It was a big success.

By this time we were pretty goofy from lack of sleep.

We commiserated, had our free cookies, packed up, headed out the back door, and then noticed the door wouldn’t open.

Two feet of snow.

Well, let me tell you– the small talk runs thin pretty quick when you are sleep deprived, 23 years old, and surrounded by the august members of the Women’s Symphony League. There were daughters of Beer Barons, descendants of heavy duty transformer companies, foundries, leather tanning companies, you name it.

They got tired of telling us how wonderful we were, and we got tired of hearing it (okay, not really, but the conversation slowed quickly. They just didn’t really know what to make of us. They kept asking us where our fathers were, assuming we couldn’t possibly be old enough to do what we were doing.)

Finally, being that we were in the Schlitz Clubhouse, a Beer baron descendant saw fit to break open the industrial sized cooler in the kitchen. Yes, we drank Schlitz.

Conversation loosened (mostly a blur) and suddenly, it was two hours later and a path had been plowed. We made our way to Ric’s Chevy Blazer and set off to our small office to unpack and call it a week.

Mitch Miller was none too happy, however. He was due in St. Paul at 4pm and that wasn’t happening. No cell phones. No iPods. No laptops. No PDAs. Just Mitch and the ladies.

And he didn’t drink.

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