The Epic Rainstorm of October 29, 1973 - Part 1

Stories and fantasies about rainwear.
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joe
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Joined: January 18th, 2010, 3:36 am
Location: Maine, USA

The Epic Rainstorm of October 29, 1973 - Part 1

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The Epic Rainstorm on Monday, October 29, 1973

Thank you for reading this new edition in three parts. All previous editions have been deleted from this forum.

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. I can recall the months of September and October that year being especially mild. The opening weeks of school that year were especially hot and uncomfortable. The last significant rainfall was on a Monday very early in August when several torrential thunderstorms just parked over Central New Jersey dumping enough rain to cause major flooding. There was one afternoon and evening of heavy rain on a Friday in mid-September. I needed my raincoat to walk home from school that day. The Triple Crown champion Secretariat lost a horse race on a muddy track two weeks later after another Friday night of rain. Then the drought began. The turf at Belmont Park hardened and Secretariat set another world record in his next race. Cheering on both Secretariat and the Mets in the World Series that fall, I forgot about the drought and the fact that my raincoat remained stuck in the closet unworn for weeks on end. Then seemingly out of nowhere we were forecast to have a deluge that would end six weeks of drought on the last Monday of October.

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. Then I watched the local NBC television news to hear the same forecast from Dr. Frank Field who even reminded parents that their children would need to wear their raincoats in the over three inches of rain that he promised would fall the next day. 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 to the 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 official record for October 29, 1973 in Plainfield, NJ 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 reached 61° when the rain would be at its heaviest driving down in buckets. The rainstorm turned out to be everything that I was anticipating while lying in bed the night before and much more. With excitement the night before, I began to anticipate wearing my raincoat and the raincoats that I would see on my classmates and many others. Of course, I dreamt of myself in my raincoat first.

In the 5th grade and at the age 10, I wore a single-breasted fly front zip-lined tan raincoat and carried a tan leather legal bag that immediately conveyed the image of a little lawyer! My classmates came to recognize and know me by my book bag, coat and boots since I wore my raincoat whenever it was raining or just threatening to rain. The raincoat was also my dress coat to wear to church and other sorts of formal occasions. I loved wearing my raincoat and even in fifth grade I developed a strong insatiable raincoat fetish although I did not know it as such at that time in my life. Feeling this fetish in all its imperative demands, the weather forecast and the build-up to a torrential downpour caused me anxiety and frankly nervous bowels knowing that the time for wearing my raincoat after the long drought would soon arrive. The only relief for my intense desire was that I could wear my raincoat regularly.

About two years before, l had outgrown my knee-length yellow rubber Weather Rite raincoat with the matching helmet hood. By the time that I reached third grade I had become quite chunky in stature. I missed getting to wear my Weather Rite raincoat which I wore from when I started school in kindergarten through the middle of third grade. Over this time, I had the opportunity to wear my rubber slicker 81 times on rainy days of which 27 were days of heavy rain of over one inch. This was an average of twenty-three rainy days that I wore my yellow rubber slicker annually during the first 3 1/2 years of elementary school and a yearly average of eight days of heavy rain during these early elementary school years. The best of these rain storms that I experienced while wearing my rubber slicker with the helmet hood was a 2.75 inch torrential downpour on the first day of school in first grade, an August rainstorm of 5.35 inches when I and all the neighborhood kids walked to to the barbershop to get our haircuts just before the opening of school in third grade, and then about two and a half weeks later in September 1971 with all of us rubbered up for the opening of Sunday school with 3.53 inches of rain in a flooding downpour. We would sweat bullets under those caped-back rubber raincoats as the rain came down in unforgiving torrents on those slickers. My yellow Weather Rite slicker and helmet hood was replaced by my tan Briarcliff single-breasted raincoat with the zip-in lining at the mid-point of third grade. I had an all-weather raincoat that I loved, that fit me well, and with the “rain, heavy at times forecast”, I couldn’t wait to wear my raincoat in the upcoming all-day heavy rain that was a certainty on this last Monday of October 1973. I was a proud and grateful wearer of that raincoat since receiving it as a gift from my great aunt at Christmas 1971.

I would wear this adult-styled Balmacaan raincoat through the beginning of seventh grade in 1975. And I got to wear my tan raincoat even more often than my previous rubber slicker. Both the days of precipitation and of heavy rainfall were increasing. I wore it on 87 rainy days during that 3 ½ year period. This meant I wore my tan raincoat an average of 25 times a year and on days of heavy rain 13 times each school year. Over the lifetime of that coat, I wore it in a total of 46 heavy rainstorms of over one inch. On the cusp of this October 29th rain storm, my tan Briarcliff raincoat had been satisfyingly worn a total of 44 times since I had received it and it had already endured 24 days of heavy rain of over one inch. It seemed that when I put that raincoat on it really poured and if you averaged it out, I was in that raincoat for almost one out of every six school days. On average, once a week with at least one heavy rain day each month during the school year! I knew that we were sitting on a huge rainstorm that would soak my raincoat at least as much as the big rainstorm of 4.20 inches that I enjoyed to date in my tan raincoat the previous year in fourth grade in November 1972. That was the second biggest rainstorm in my life up until that point. Today’s rainstorm would surpass every rainstorm that I had ever experienced taking first place with 5.66 inches of rain in my town. I realized that every fall we seemed to have at least one heavy soaking rainstorm that I would call a “serious raincoat day”. Trying to sleep and not knowing yet how prolific this rainstorm would be, I continued to think about the other streaming wet raincoats that I would see on my classmates at school in the morning.

An emerging raincoat option for elementary and junior high boys was the reversible NFL team reversible PVC rain ponchos which were sold by Sears and first appeared in their Fall 1972 Catalogue – in time for the wonderful school day downpour in November 1972 and for the rest of that fourth-grade school year. My parents had 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 Rainfair 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 wear monsoon defying rain protection. They had a little over an hour walk to school including a significant period waiting outside the school as the rain poured down on all of us waiting 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 drenching driving rain. And in winter these ponchos were worn over winter coats to protect against not only rain but cold wet sleet. In this 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 of the boys wearing other raincoats. Well they should be as the three boys in the football ponchos stayed driest of all!

High school students including my older brother Bob and my sister Amy usually wore adult raincoats – balmacaans like my tan Briarcliff or trench coats - which being just water-repellent would get very wet, if not completely soaked in heavy rains. The top half of the raincoat, especially around the shoulders, would get soaked through. These students turned their collars up and leaned forward into the waves of rain. In a 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 raincoats as best they could. Upon arrival at school or their place of work, they hissed at the rain and dramatically peeled off their raincoats, as if to show off with a mixture of pride and disgust their completely soaked raincoat to their co-workers, friends and classmates. For girls and women who frequently wore dressier spring raincoats of lightweight fabrics which were fine for only rain showers, a typical day of heavy rain would see girls and women struggle to stay dry in these coats. They got drenched. Today, the ladies in their raincoats would tussle with umbrellas; the torrential rain was merciless soaking their raincoats right through. The best choice for females was to wear skirts or dresses with quick drying nylons or pantyhose fitted into their boots. Black dress pants were an alternative to a skirt or dress as they would not show the wetness from the soaking drenching rains. Young ladies and young men learned to rely on a good pair of black dress pants as a thoughtful and practical option to wear in inclement weather. Most owned at least two pair of these pants in their wardrobe to wear under their raincoats. Lightweight sweaters worn over a dress or blouse could serve as a makeshift liner to add some warmth under raincoats without winter liners. A plastic rain bonnet or silky headscarf was a necessary substitute for an umbrella. And rain boots or winter boots were essential.

I comforted myself thinking again about the television weather forecast and Dr. Frank Field urging parents – including my parents – “make sure that the kids are wearing their raincoats to school – a jacket and an umbrella will not do them any good, they will need to be wearing the RAINCOATS!” And he said a second time for emphasis: “the kids are going to need to be wearing the yellow raincoats – it’s going to pour – make sure they are wearing their rubber slickers and galoshes tomorrow. They are going to get a good soaking.” That was enough to send my mom right away to the coat closet, put the zip-in lining in my raincoat and lay it out along with my black rubber boots on my chair at the kitchen table. I rejoiced when I saw this before going to bed Sunday evening; I was certainly going to be wearing my raincoat to school in the morning.

I long suspected that my mom enjoyed wearing raincoats as much as I. We both wore similar Balmacaan raincoats. Her metabolism ran hot, and she might get cranky on a humid rainy day at the prospect of putting a raincoat on in the summer or early fall. It was only then that she might be less forthcoming with her direction to “wear your raincoat.” When it was a sultry rain just looking at a raincoat or especially a rubber slicker made her hot. Perhaps that was another reason why she would zip out the liner of my raincoat as soon as the temperatures hit 60° or above. But with her I could always count on wearing the tan Balmacaan raincoat for any rain, sleet, or snow and for dress occasions or to church. She taught me to open my raincoat and fan it whenever I got hot and had me wearing it often enough so that it became a second skin on me. Surely, my mom will have me snuggling into my raincoat after she warmed it up in the furnace closet before school. The words: “Wear your raincoat” were music to my ears.

I am sure that all over my suburban town, school mothers everywhere, having heard Dr. Frank Field’s Sunday night forecast, were thinking about how to dress their sons and daughters for school and particularly for heavy rain. It was a horrible forecast and not an easy one to dress your kids for. The day called for head-to-toe full-length rubber raincoats on everyone. But it was a 43° cold, raw, persistent steady rain that would start Monday. And a sub-tropical flooding monsoon with rising temperatures would end it. Two completely different temperature ranges for children’s outerwear. Because there was an extended drought of over six weeks, this was the first heavy rain of the school year. Mothers would have had to have found the long closeted rainwear on Sunday night and lay out the raincoats, ponchos and slickers for Monday. Or they would have to quickly find the raincoats in the morning. At the break of day the steady and intensifying rain set in. And the temps as expected were raw and cold. The cold morning with the forecast of heavy rain and afternoon milder temperatures gave nervous mothers an anxious choice: “should the kids be wearing their winter coats this morning and then we can just put them in their rain slickers after lunch when it will be warmer with heavy rain. Or should we just make them wear their raincoats now?” They were almost second-guessing the forecast with the raw cold showery rains seemingly calling for the winter parka more than a raincoat.. Fortuitously the rain responded with a downpour and the sounds of pouring rain made the moms jump and exhale: “He is going to need his raincoat. Oh, oh-oh, he is going to to get wet! This rain is going to pour! I’m going to need to cover him in rubber! We need to get him in his rubber coat!” Oh God, this rain is pouring. It can rain all it wants. I’ll have him in this slicker and rain hood and he can be standing out there getting poured on all day! We are going to keep him dry!”

The mothers were quick to go for the raincoats, pulling and jostling raincoats out of closets or off coat hooks. For mothers of sons at an elementary or junior high school in 1973, these raincoats were most often the long heavy yellow rubber rain slickers with matching helmet hoods. These coats were totally perfect for a day like this and they were the longest coats a boy owned covering up their sons like nothing else. The moms would open the yellow slickers and with relish 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 the sons and their mothers loved the feel and took in the reassuring aroma of the rubber raincoats on a wet day. The anxious moms gritted their teeth and vowed to their sons: “The rain won’t come through this! You can be in this slicker and rain hood and be out there letting this rain pour on you all day!” Mothers were already picturing their sons in their cape-backed raincoats and rain hoods bearing down and approaching the school under the gray leaden heavens pouring down their relentless rain. Getting your family ready for a day of 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 the long rubber slickers and zip-lined raincoats. But the gold standard in student rainwear for most mothers remained the long heavy yellow rubber slickers with the brass clasps, helmet hoods, and black rubber boots with buckles. All of these were oversized to fit over winter outerwear if the temperatures dictated.

Whenever mothers dressed their family for the rain, they didn’t think in terms of drizzles; they thought in downpours! They dressed their sons to be out in a drenching rain for hours on end in their slickers. In a strange sort of way for the moms, today - with its promise of heavy rain after a long drought - offered an opportunity to dote on a boy by covering him in a long rubber raincoat. Mothers like my own also welcomed a day of drenching rain for a more important reason which made a raincoat both essential and required. Going to school in an all-day rainstorm involved walking for an hour and then waiting outside for the opening bell in a pouring rain covered in a rubber slicker. The rubber raincoat, the matching helmet hood, and rubber boots – in short, rubber everything – was not only how mothers dressed their sons for torrential rain. These mothers were dressing their sons to build their character. Hugging their sons and inspecting them one last time just to make sure they were fully covered in rubber for the rain, the moms smiled devilishly as they sent their sons out the door into the driving sheets of torrential rain totally smug. The mothers knew that their sons who had a long walk to school in their adult zip-lined raincoats and their rubber slickers were suitably dressed for protection against a downpour that would have no let-up or relief. Only a mother could welcome this horrible weather as both a blessing and a precious gift which served to build their sons’ character in their long raincoats. The moms even dared the heavens: “God, you can drench these kids in their raincoats with no mercy! Drill this downpour through their slickers! Soak those slickers! Pour, pour, pour! Get those raincoats wet!” For mothers there was something about wearing a raincoat that made a boy look dutiful, obedient, and compliant against the elements.

Mothers of daughters, however were not as confident dressing their girls for heavy rain. Just like the raincoats of their older sisters in high school, girl's rainwear was typically light weight and dressy, not at all meant for the heavy drenching downpours that would fall today. I frequently saw the girls in my fifth-grade wearing lightweight cotton-blend coats that had a clear plastic raincoat permanently attached over the printed cloth and that came with a matching rain hat. Of all the feminine-styled raincoats for young girls, these worked the best in heavy rain. Other options when the rain was drenching were for girls to wear a pile-lined long hooded winter storm coat of rain repellent poplin, a girl's version of a Balmacaan raincoat, a girl’s rubber slicker with the brass clasps or a rubberized canvas benchwarmer raincoat. The taller girls seemed to have additional options for raincoats that would stand up to heavy rain. They could borrow and fit into yellow rubber raincoats that once belonged to their older brothers or if the heavy rain made for a real emergency, a few girls might be able to wear one of their mother’s old raincoats. In short, with their girls, mothers had to really plan, adapt, and improvise putting rainwear in all possible combinations in a valiant effort to try and keep their girls dry. Bread bags were put over their socks or tights to wear inside boots to keep a girl’s feet dry. Some of the raincoats that were worn dated from when the girls were much younger. These girls even up to junior high would wear their elementary school raincoats once again for a day of heavy rain. My friend Janet was able to wear a Winnie the Pooh raincoat from first grade right through to the fall of seventh grade in junior high school. The girls who had their own rubber rain slickers in more feminine colors such as red or light blue were both fashionable and among the best prepared for heavy rain. With the raincoats of my female classmates, I grew accustomed to seeing almost anything on them that might keep them dry. While I rarely saw girls in my own classes wearing helmet hoods with their slickers; this did happen. Girls must have felt super dorky wearing them. A good example of a girl who wore a helmet hood was my friend Maura. She was two years older than me and a fan of Star Trek. She loved heavy rain and had a walk of over an hour to middle school in a long red rubber slicker and a helmet hood. She loved wearing her helmet hood not least because it made her look like the Tholians in the Star Trek episodes. She welcomed the challenge of her walk to school in heavy rain and took pleasure in wearing all of her rubber gear. Last year, she was in the last class to have their sixth grade in Byrne School: a building that was exclusively dedicated to that grade level. Byrne School had been a long and exposed uphill walk from our neighborhood and an even longer walk for Maura. Mothers would go out and buy adult size rubber slickers for both their sons and daughters in sixth grade. They needed these slickers in heavy rainstorms when they went to Byrne School. I figured that these huge slickers would disappear in time with Byrne School now closed but for the moment it seemed to be a rite of passage to put your sixth grader in a long and oversized flowing rubber raincoat and helmet hood. That raincoat was sized big enough to fit you well into high school. Of all the grades in my elementary school, the yellow rubber slickers seemed to be the most prevalent among the sixth graders and perhaps their mothers were getting them ready for the long walk downtown and the long waiting time upon arrival at the junior high school which for these students would begin the following year in seventh grade.
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