October 29 - the anniversary of an epic rainstorm and a frustrating day

[joe]

Today, October 29 is the anniversary of an epic rainstorm in New Jersey in 1973. It was my fifth grade year. The rainstorm occurred on a Monday, the day that students returned to school after a weekend. Since the middle of September in 1973, New Jersey was in a severe drought with just a trace amount of rain. Then we were forecast to have a deluge. As was my custom and anticipating an all-day downpour spent wearing my raincoat, I listened to the Sunday evening weather forecast on News Radio 88 from New York. It called for rain all day on Monday, heavy at times, with northeast winds of 15 to 25mph. Wanting to wear my raincoat in a downpour more than anything, I would go to bed anxious and jumpy. And totally excited over what the next day would bring.

In the small city just west of our suburban town, the daily newspaper had a woman meteorologist who gave detailed comments and statistical records for the weather each day. The record for October 29, 1973 indicated a torrential drought-busting rainfall of 4.63 inches. At 8:00 AM, the temperature was 43°. By the end of the school day the temperature was 61° when the rain would be driving down in buckets.

Here is my frustration about this day of heavy rain. A raw cold autumnal downpour would start Monday. A sub-tropical flooding monsoon with rising temperatures ended would end it. Given the extended drought of six weeks, this was the first heavy rain of the school year. Mothers would have to find the long closeted rainwear Sunday night and lay out the raincoats, ponchos and slickers for the next day. Or they would have to quickly find the raincoats in the morning. At the break of day a steady and intensifying rain set in. And the temps were raw and cold. The cold morning with the forecast of heavy rain and milder temperatures gave nervous mothers an anxious choice: should the kids wear winter coats this morning and then we can get them in their slickers after lunch? Or should make them wear their raincoats now? The rain responded with a downpour; and the mothers were quick to go for the raincoats, pulling and jostling the raincoats out of closets or off of coat hooks. For mothers of sons in an elementary or junior high school in 1973, these raincoats were long heavy yellow rubber rain slickers with matching helmet hoods. Totally perfect for a day like this and the coat that covered up their sons like nothing else. The moms would open the yellow slickers and sweep the raincoats onto their young charges along with the helmet hoods and rubber boots with great rustling sounds. As they put the raincoats on their sons and fastened the brass clasp closures, both sons and their mothers loved the feel and aroma of the rubber raincoats. The anxious moms gritted their teeth and vowed to their sons: “The rain won’t come through this!” She pictured her sons in their cape-backed raincoats and rainhoods: good young men bearing down and approaching the school under the gray leaden heavens just pouring down their relentless rain. Getting your family ready for heavy rain was a personal challenge that put your motherhood on the line. The more the rain poured, the more these mothers met the challenge with slickers and raincoats. The moms smiled devilishly as they sent their sons into the driving sheets of rain totally smug, knowing that their sons had a long walk to school wearing their zip-lined raincoats and rubber slickers to protect them against a downpour with no let-up or relief. The moms even dared the heavens: “O God, you can drench these kids in their raincoats with no mercy! Drive your damn downpour right through them! Just soak their slickers! My raincoats will still keep my sons dry!” Schoolday anxieties released and with kids gone, Mom was free to bitch at the rain to pour down even harder. Pulling on her London Fog at last, Mom rushed out, urging the downpour to just soak the hell out of her raincoat and kill the damn drought. Other moms, eagerly ventured out on errands with her, defying the downpour, gladly letting it drench their raincoats as it vanquished the drought.

An emerging raincoat option for elementary and junior high boys were the reversible NFL team PVC rain ponchos which were sold by Sears and first appeared in their Christmas 1972 Wish Book. My parents soon after bought a green to reversible yellow New York Jets poncho for me to be kept at our vacation home in Maine and there it stayed 400 miles away. The introduction of this NFL licensed raincoat was timely as the years from 1973 to 1977 saw perhaps 25 rainstorms of 2 inch rainfalls or more on school days and on Sundays. In the fall of 1973, there were maybe 3 boys who wore the Sears NFL raincoat to school. I am sure these replaced outgrown yellow Weather-Rite or Swell-Wear yellow, green, or black rubber helmet hooded raincoats. These voluminous rain ponchos covered over everything including heavier outerwear. My three fifth grade classmates with these ponchos were lucky to have monsoon defying rain protection. They had a little over an hour walk to school including a significant period of time waiting outside the school in all weather for the doors to open. Mothers, including mine, became enamored of these rain ponchos with their full coverage against rains that could range from drizzles to downpours and include winter sleet. In this particular October rainstorm, the rains would pound down on these enveloping ponchos making a heavy cacophonous drumming noise on the boys sheltered underneath their protection. The ponchos were probably the envy of some boys wearing other raincoats. Well they should be as these three boys in the football ponchos stayed driest of all!

High school students frequently wore adult raincoats - balmacaans or trenchcoats - which being just water-repellent would get very wet in heavy rains with the top half of the raincoat, especially around the shoulders, getting soaked through. They turned their collars up and leaned forward into the waves of rain. In the wind driven rain when an umbrella was useless, both high school and college students along with older adults expected their London Fog raincoats to get very wet. They learned to just rely on their raincoat as best they could and upon arrival at school or their place of work, hissed at the rain and shook off their outerwear, as if to display with a mixture of pride and disgust their most soaked raincoat to their friends and classmates. For girls and women who frequently wore dressier raincoats of lightweight fabrics which were fine for showers, a typical day of heavy rain would see girls and women struggle in these coats and get drenched. Today, the ladies in their raincoats would tussle with umbrellas; the torrential rain was merciless and would soak their raincoats right through. The best choice for females was to wear skirts or dresses with quick drying nylons fitted into boots. Slacks would get hopelessly wet and a lightweight sweater over a dress or blouse made for a makeshift raincoat liner. A plastic rain bonnet or silky headscarf was a necessary substitute for an umbrella.

In my school in the 5th grade and at the age 10, I also wore a dress raincoat and carried a tan leather legal bag that immediately conveyed the image of a little lawyer! But unfortunately at this young age, I was not one to decisively go to the closet and put on my raincoat. At the same time and in possession of a raincoat fetish, the forecast and build-up to a rainy day caused me anxiety and frankly nervous bowels knowing that the time of putting on and wearing a raincoat had arrived. But a day with the forecast promising a torrential rain storm could also present the dreaded danger of not wearing a raincoat. Since a memorably rainy day at the first grade opening of school, four years prior, this had not been a problem. I wore my raincoat regularly. I had outgrown my knee-length yellow rubber Weather Rite raincoat with a matching helmet hood by this point and was quite chunky in stature. But my tan Briarcliff single-breasted raincoat with the zip-in lining still fit well and armed with the “rain, heavy at times forecast”, I looked forward to and fully expected to wear my raincoat on that October Monday of all-day heavy rain. I was the proud wearer of that raincoat from my receiving the coat as a gift from my great aunt at Christmas 1971 in third grade through seventh grade in 1975.It stood up to maybe 50 heavy rainstorms over that four year period. But admittedly, this dress raincoat was water resistant but not waterproof.

After asking her about my raincoat, my mom said that I would have to wear my winter coat given that the rain would be wind-driven and heavy. I think my mother was thinking that I needed a hood for the downpour and an umbrella would have been useless in the hands of a kid in high winds. I wish now that I would have creatively suggested pairing off my tan balmacaan raincoat with my knitted ski hat or my vinyl clad bomber hat as my raincoat did not have a hood of it own. In fact, the Naugahyde pile lined black bomber hat with ear flaps was closest thing I had to a yellow rain slicker bell-shaped helmet hood - and grrrr! – the bomber hat would have been the perfect and practical companion to my tan raincoat: secure in the wind and waterproof. Again, I asked my Mom if I could wear my raincoat but she had firmly decided in favor of a hooded winter jacket.

So the nylon pile lined hooded winter parka it was with black waterproof pile lined boots. And my younger brother was dressed in the same manner. We were driven to school and we got out among a parade of students wearing yellow slickers and helmet hoods going up the sidewalk. The rubber raincoats already had the added allure of being glistening wet. The rain was blinding and pelting in a downward wind-driven diagonal. Still, the rain was not yet at full force. But taking in the sight of all the students in their long billowing yellow rubber rain slickers and helmet hoods hulking under the diagonal slanting rain made my heart sink even as that same wondrous image of yellow slickered brigades of students dashing up the sidewalk through waves of sadistic drenching rain etched forever in my memory.

It rained increasingly harder that October morning and torrential thunderstorms started at 11:00AM. To make matters worse I was not going home for lunch. No possibility of upgrading to a raincoat during lunch so that I could return to school more happily attired.

Among those who went home for lunch there were examples of raincoat upgrades (morning jacket to an afternoon full-length rubber raincoat) and raincoat downgrades (morning raincoat to an afternoon winter snorkel coat). One male classmate, who had a comparatively short walk home for lunch had worn a black zip-lined single-breasted raincoat much like my own British tan raincoat to school that day. He walked home a block and a half to lunch at 11:45AM. It was now relentlessly torrential: the flooding rains that would shut down our local highway were not going to let up. When he returned to school, he was wearing a winter jacket too. His grandmother had pulled off his soaked raincoat obviously at home. I asked the boy about his raincoat. He said that his grandmother had complained that his raincoat became muddy.

Those who received a raincoat upgrade at home during lunch caught my eye. Girls were in particular need of changing into a heavier or more waterproof raincoat from their typically lightweight and dressier rainwear. A few girls who were tall enough could wear their mom’s raincoat back to school. They looked like young bank tellers sweeping these raincoats off. On most of these raincoats, at least the top half soaked through leaving the inner winter pile lining as the last line of downpour defense. One girl in particular caught my eye. She was widely perceived as a tomboy and a terrific athlete. She almost never wore a raincoat. She returned to school on this day of soaking rain in her older brothers olive knee-length cloth raincoat bonded to rubber on the inside. These coats were popular among students in the 1960s and 70s and were a variant and longer length version of the Navy swamp coat. What caught my eye was that the drenching rain even served to subdue this girl’s usually defiant tomboy attitude: she looked satisfied and comfortably snug in the completely saturated green benchwarmer raincoat. She had gotten so thoroughly wet on her walk from her mother’s car and up the sidewalk to return to school. Coming back into the classroom her hood was up and she radiated contentment underneath it.

It was a frustrating day. And I was sitting next to my female seat mate upon whom I had a mild crush, being tortured by the rubber lining of her tan suede rubberized cloth and hooded raincoat which she draped to dry over the back of her chair at our paired desks, obviously with the teacher's permission. The lockers were full and the rubber aroma filled the room from the draping wet slickers that were hanging there in the back of the classroom.

I remember this from the end of the school day at 2:45PM. We were just about nearing three inches of rain since the morning – .50 to .75 of an inch per hour throughout the five hour school day. Not only were the Route 22 highway lanes flooding out but other roads as well.

As we lined up getting our coats on to leave school, one boy was commenting on how he liked his black Weather Rite with the brass clasp closures as you could quickly fasten it compared to a zipper.

Just walking down the sidewalk to a waiting school bus - or better yet embarking on a long walk home and wearing any kind of long raincoat in this relentless incorrigible downpour made them quickly appear shiny and soaking.

The days when you should have worn a raincoat but didn’t are just as formative as those when you wore your raincoat in an epic torrential rainstorm and enjoyed it thoroughly. For me, the entire experience of this fall of fifth grade rainstorm at age 10 was demoralizing. But October 29, 1973 made its mark on me. It solidified and sealed my bond with raincoats permanently. From that day onward I resolved to always wear my raincoat whenever the weather demanded it. Or even if the weather didn’t. Happily to this day I wear my raincoat anyway.

[TStorm56]

Thanks for sharing such a wonderful story, Joe. Like you, I also look forward to exceptionally wet and stormy days. Heavy rains are forecasted for tomorrow and the 31st, I am looking forward to walking to class on my university campus in the pouring rain wearing my calf-length Grundens raincoat!

[Gordo]

You should have grown up in Norway. In the land of "There's no bad weather, only bad clothing." all of the kids have full raingear consisting of raincoats and rain pants. And from what I've read and a few videos I've seen back in the 1970's this consisted of solid PVC Helly Hansen rainwear.