When the National Football League season played a 14-game regular season and the Super Bowl was held the second week in January, I eagerly looked forward to the big game between the Minnesota Vikings and Pittsburgh Steelers. I had become a loyal fan of the Minnesota Vikings, led by my hero, quarterback Fran Tarkenton, a couple of years before and was counting down the days until Super Bowl IX, scheduled for Jan. 12, 1975, at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
ADVERTISEMENT I had high hopes that after losing Super Bowl IV to the Kansas City Chiefs in 1970 and Super Bowl VIII to the Miami Dolphins in 1974 that the Vikings' third appearance would be a charm. Super Bowl IX weekend turned out to be even more memorable than I expected, but not because of the game. Instead it was the big blizzard that hit on Sat.
, Jan. 11, 1975, that I recall. That day ferocious winds plastered our farm buildings with a combination of snow and dirt, called snirt.
Not only were the winds blizzard force, the temperature was frigid. My mom described it succinctly on the Jan. 11 entry she wrote on the Farmers Union Grain Co.
1975 calendar: “Terribly stormy, between 35 and 40 mph winds. Wind gusts to 80 mph. 9 below.
Most everything canceled.” That is everything except taking care of our cattle and horses, which took precedence over everything else that day. Our cattle usually spent their winters outside in a corral next to the barn where my dad fed them big round bales of hay in feeders.
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