Leo Osmar recalls night shift weather

Here is an email that composing room retiree Leo Osmar sent to his children on Wednesday morning after spending close to two hours Tuesday afternoon traveling from Catholic Worker House on South Main Street to his home on North Hill. Leo says he is from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan so is not really too upset "when we get a 'touch of home' here in Akron."

Here's the email:

Hi all,
It is 9a.m.
I'm not surprised that no BJ was in my box this morning. And it is still snowing pretty steadily. So
what! I've (we've) pretty much decided to declare "snow days" for Thursday already. And I do feel for anyone who has to venture out today. Brings back a memory of years back when I was on the night shift at BJ. Weather was bad and pretty much getting worse, but what the heck. I jumped in the VW bus and went to work by way of Tallmadge to Dan to North to Arlington to Exchange to BJ. I took the short route that day because there was a backup on Main to the viaduct. It took a couple hours and I was not docked. The Composing Room had no time clocks.

Few people arrived to work that day. Mike Leidel was one of them (and he insisted on beer breaks every few hours). The BJ ASKED day timers to stay on and also any night shift people. At overtime and double time rate. BJ had reserved rooms at closeby hotels or motels for anyone who wanted an hour or two to sleep. BJ paid the bill.

Mike Leidel went home about 1 a.m. I stayed for a couple hours more and headed home. Downtown roads were OK. Main Street was easy all the way to Tallmadge. Then snow was bad. When turning onto Schiller I impounded into a snowbank and could not move. I walked home. And had a cup of coffee. I remember starting upstairs and my mind said, "Volkswagens do not get stuck." So I went back to the car and rocked that car back and forth until it gave up and backed out of the snowbank. Then I drove over to the A&P store on Howard Street and parked the car in the parking lot. And of course I walked home and went to bed. (Retrieved it the next afternoon when I went to work).