Former CCHS teacher recounts meaningful winter experience

Solitude. The light scraping of metal against concrete in the otherwise pristinely, silent scene. The white backdrop of a city covered in snow. These are the memories that come to mind for Randy Hughes in regard to one of his favorite moments from childhood.

The former teacher, who retired from Southwestern Community College in 2016 after 11 years, and before that taught history at Creston Community High School, revisited the time and place in his mind, a meaningful moment from the winter of 1960.

“It was a Christmas season memory, but really Christmas didn’t have much to do with it, it was just that time of year. I was with my family, but we separated to shovel snow. We just lived a block from our church, and we helped them out doing things,” he said.

Hughes said there was a heavy snow storm on Christmas Eve and he, along with his parents Wayne and Irene Hughes, came to shovel paths in the snow. They arrived at St. John’s United Church of Christ in Fort Madison — a city seated on the west bank of the Mississippi River — at about 10 p.m.

“My mom and dad stayed in front of the church to do the steps and that type of area, and I went around the corner to do a long stretch of sidewalk,” he said.

Hughes, who was 12-years-old at the time, said it was a dark night and heavy snow was falling straight down upon him as he worked.

“It looked like a Hollywood snow,” he said.

Hughes said this time in his life was pretty typical. He was just a young person trying to grow up, attending school and spending time with his friends. But on this particular night, as the falling and settling snow absorbed all the sound around him, and since his parents were on the other side of the church working and those in the community were not getting out due to the storm, Hughes said he found himself alone.

“And the quiet hit me,” he said.

Hughes said the street light that was hung up on a cable across the roadway provided very little light to the scene — it was almost completely dark. And even though he was out in the middle of a snow storm, Hughes said he neither felt the cold nor the wetness of the evening.

“It just felt so good,” he said. “... It was an experience of solitude.”

Hughes said he did not experience loneliness on that quiet sidewalk that night, but that he did experience something memorable.

“It sort of came over me that I was part of the universe, that it had snowed for a million years and it was going to snow a million years more, and that I was standing a part of it,” he said.

Hughes said the entire time he was shoveling, only a single car passed by.

“I could hear it coming from behind, and in those days, you could have chains on your tires for traction. So, I could hear the click-click-click-click coming down the street,” he said.

Hughes said that was the only other human activity he saw during those moments in time.

“It was just a good feeling of peacefulness,” he said.

A lifelong impact

Hughes said the experience affected him in such a way that he understood he was a part of the ticking clock of eternity, and that it still has an effect on him today.

“I began to see more of what was in the natural world. Buds on the trees in spring. I look forward to the slow change of the leaves in autumn and savor the sound of crunching underfoot and that distinctive smell of the dried leaves. Then, and most especially, the night sky,” he said.

Hughes said he now enjoys star gazing and celebrates the equinoxes, solstices and eclipses like a druid.

“Looking back, it was that snowy, quiet night that awakened those feelings,” he said.

Hughes said that in his profession, he had to be an extrovert in order to stand in front of a classroom.

“But otherwise, I like the quiet times. ... Solitude. Not isolation, not loneliness, but just getting away is good,” he said.

Hughes said that while before, shoveling snow was just a job, he has enjoyed doing it ever since — as long as he does not have to rush.

“Bundle up, take your time, come in and drink hot chocolate,” he said.

Hughes said until now, he has only ever shared the experience with Linda, his wife of 52 years, but that the feeling it gave him has been something he’s been chasing after ever since.

During a summer trip to Alaska with Linda in 2012, when the bus stopped at Denali National Park to give passengers a break, Hughes said he felt something similar to that first, snowy experience of his youth. According to nps.gov, the park encompasses six million acres of wilderness in the northernmost state of the nation at which “solitude, tranquility and wilderness await.” As the description projects, this was truly the type of destination for the peace and quiet seeking teacher.

“And I just walked across the road and was standing on a pretty high bluff, and there was nothing man-made out in front of me. It was all meadows, pastures, mountains in the background, and I thought — it’s just me,” Hughes said.

Though behind him was a bus full of people, out in front of him was only nature.

“That’s the closest I had to recapturing that moment. And I kind of look for them,” Hughes said. “... If you have that feeling and capture those moments, it’s great.”