Owensboro Snowstorm in ’77…Did It Really Happen?

I have no earthly idea how much snow we got in January of 1977, but I do know this...my MEMORY has it at hip deep--keeping in mind I was only 11 years old at the time.

When I searching "Owensboro winter storms," I get a lot of them; we've had our fair share. But I never find anything about the one from January of 1977. Yeah, I know there's a thing called the Mandela Effect, wherein you are absolutely certain something happened a certain way only to find out that you have remembered it wrong the whole time. But I'm fairly certain this isn't one of those times; the memories are too vivid.

And here's what DOES stand out in my memory banks:

I was in fifth grade at Masonville Elementary School and we were finishing up our day with art class. And here's why I remember it was art...

After we left school that day, the snow started falling and didn't seem to want to stop falling and eventually the entire area was covered in a blanket of white. And it was deep.

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Now, something about this that MAY be wrong--because when I think about it now, it doesn't make any sense--is that I've always remembered being out of school for a whole month beginning on whatever that January day was. But now, it doesn't seem like being out for a whole month because would have happened because I think snow plows would have, at some point in all that, managed to hit the bricks and clear roads off. On the other hand, I remember it being declared a disaster, meaning we didn't have to make up those school days. Otherwise, we would have been in school until July.

I don't know. Like I said, I can't find any records on it.

But when we got back to school, the art project (actually, I think I was just coloring a picture--eat your heart out, Picasso) was still sitting on top of my desk, covered in dust.

I'll never forget it. Even IF it didn't happen.

Also, I vividly remember watching President Jimmy Carter's inauguration on January 20th and I remember watching everybody walk down Pennsylvania Avenue in the snow.

But, honestly, now that I cannot find anything about that snowstorm, did it even happen? Surely, I can't have memories THIS VIVID about something that didn't happen. Surely, I can't be taking the blizzard of '78 and backdating it to 1977.

That's really weird. And, yes, I'll stop calling you Shirley.