Roy Harrington still can hear the train whistles blow.

Friday, March 17, 2000

Roy Harrington still can hear the train whistles blow.

He can sniff the air and smell coal burning or diesel in the air.

When he stands, Harrington still may sway back and forth with the rhythm of wheels moving over track.

And when he closes his eyes, the memory of a not-so-pleasant St. Patrick’s Day from the past comes alive.

"I remember it well," he said. "It caught us all by surprise that year. Things were going pretty well up to then, but then the storm changed everything."

The late-winter days this year have been eerily similar to the one remembered by Harrington.

The beautiful, warm days of unseasonable temperatures followed by more down-to-earth temperatures this March teased everyone.

Fifty degrees, then highs in the 60s and even 70s … it was a blast.

But so was the late winter of 1951, which Harrington remembers so well.

The Austin Daily Herald’s headlines were filled with reports from the Korean War 49 years ago. Pictures and accounts of the bloody war were plastered across the front pages.

But readers of the newspaper could count on some semblance of normalcy that time of the year: Ove Berven had another Austin High boys basketball team in the state tournament.

By mid-March 1951, the state finals were being played at Williams Arena in Minneapolis and the Packers were one of eight teams in the tournament.

Coach Berven’s team raced to a 20-1 record led by the Rasmussen twins, Dayle and Don, as well as future Olympian Burdette Haldorson, Dale Hamilton and the other hoopsters.

Reporter Tom Koeck chronicled the Packers season, which ended when Hopkins defeated Austin, 41-31, in the consolation championship.

That was the year tiny Gilbert beat Canby, 61-56.

When the state tournament action concluded that Saturday night in March 1951, outside Williams Arena a winter storm had formed and the teams and fans were stranded.

The Great St. Patrick’s Day Blizzard of 1951 had arrived.

Harrington was born at Farmington 98 years ago. He grew up on a farm, but spent all his adult life working on the railroad. The Milwaukee Road, to be sure, from start to finish.

"I was a fireman," Harrington said. "That was the only job I ever had on the Milwaukee. They trained me to be an engineer and I took the exam and passed, so they promoted me to engineer, but it didn’t mean a thing.

"I still worked as a fireman and they told me I would be used as an engineer in emergencies, but there were many of them I’ll tell you."

Harrington cut his teeth as a fireman stoking coal-fired furnaces for steam engines. He ended his career firing diesel engines.

When his health allowed him, Harrington assisted the Mower County Historical Society at the Milwaukee Junction Railroad Museum Collection at the historical center on the fairgrounds, during the August county fairs.

Now, he has outlived two wives and spends his time in a comfortable apartment where children and grandchildren visit frequently, particularly sons Gary and Duane.

As the calendar creeps closer to a new St. Patrick’s Day, Harrington recalled another one.

"We had been to Calmar, Iowa, and were coming back that day in 1951 with Locomotive No. 170 and I was the engineer that day," he said. "When we started out, it was snowing