Memories of a Christmas past
By Gerald Clear

Burrows store in the early '80s.

Editor's Note: The following article was written by Gerald Clear, remembering a Christmas from several years ago at a place that no longer exists.

Several years have sped by since this true story occurred. It happened on a very snowy Christmas Eve in the neat little town of Burrows.

As to the fact it was some time back, and due to my age, some of the things are growing dim. I will try not to use names because I might forget someone and I don't want them to feel ignored.

It all centers around our little convenience store and gas station. We called it J&G Grocery. Since it was a small town and store we were pretty much a social center and many a good story could be told from a lot of experiences. We had a lot of impromptu Christmas Eve parties that a lot of our friends and customers will still remember, and some would sooner forget.

Now on with this particular Christmas Eve. The day started as usual with a lot of holiday cheer. I think ole Santa even made an appearance (Joe Appleton), and our usual gathering of friends and neighbors, but the weather turned just plain nasty. It snowed and blew like you wouldn't believe. Eventually it got so bad they closed SR25, stranding a lot of travelers. Since we were the only bright lights around we had a store full of people on their way to celebrate Christmas with family. We had people on their way to South Bend, Elkhart, Fort Wayne and many destinations near and far.

Some accepted the situation and some called the state highway, state police and anyone else explaining they had to be on their way. Needless to say to no avail and to the great entertainment of the rest of us.

To make matters worse, it turned bitter cold but we never lost electricity and we had heat. So we kept on all night and having been open since very early morning (4:30 a.m.), you can imagine how tired we were getting. Several townspeople took total strangers home for the night and the pastor opened the church if someone needed a place to stay.

Our good friends, the Ed Houston family, made it to town and Ed volunteered to watch the store. So we went to his house and slept a while. His wife even shared their Christmas presents with us!

The next morning, Christmas Day, it was bitter cold, way below zero, but we still had hot coffee and snacks. The out-of-town visitors began to come back to the store, telling of the wonderful people they stayed with. Of course, we knew they were wonderful people.

We had vehicles all over our parking lot and drive that wouldn't run. Our local farmers came out with their equipment, trying to get strangers' vehicles going. It was so cold that their diesel fuel jelled, causing them problems also. One of the stranded crew got a big kick out of my macho attitude of "yeah, we will make it start," and we did.

Bob Brown had his snow blower on his John Deere and was opening our drives and his neighbors' roads. The impatient lad who couldn't get any satisfaction from the state thought that Bob should plow him to Logansport. Now you have to run in reverse to blow snow with that thing. Can you imagine how hard that would be? Anybody who knows Bob can well imagine his answers. Those of you who don't, it was colorful and to the point.

Meanwhile back at the store we were out of gas line de-icer and starting fluid. Ed Houston and Mark Farmer, local conservation officers, were going to try to relay their director to Lafayette from Logansport. I think there is a funny story about that. I asked them to pick up some supplies. They made their delivery and brought back some Heet and starting fluid.

Eventually later that evening the road was opened. All cars and pickups started and our new friends told their hosts goodbye and admitted it was actually an interesting and memorable Christmas, and continued on their way.

After all quieted down, we closed and went home, but being a last minute shopper, my wife didn't get a gift for me!