calherewecome

Somewhere on rte 128

   So I am reading about the activities back east tonight about people getting stuck in the snow. It brought to mind the great blizzard of 1978. The blizzard formed on February 5, 1978 (a Sunday). Everyone who lived through the that blizzard has a story. Here’s mine.

My Monday morning started off with my going to work at DEC in my office in the Mill in Maynard. By about 10 am, my boss was telling everyone to head home before we would be stuck for the duration. This was of course long before the concept of working from home.

So before I left the Mill, I called (my then) girlfriend Paula. I talked to Paula’s room mate Joan. Joan told me that Paula had just gone to bed after working the overnight shift at Children’s Hospital. Wake her up, I told her. Joan says to me, “You sure you want to do that, Joe”. Yes, I am sure. If she doesn’t get up. She won’t see me for at least 4-5 days.

So Paula comes to the phone. Remember this is long before cell phones. I tell her that I will be by in about 45 minutes to pick her up. I told her about the pending storm. She agreed. And I picked her up about 45 minutes later and we headed for my place in Newton Highlands. We managed to make to Newton from Brookline without getting stuck. I pulled into the garage and we headed inside (and stayed inside).

Needless to say we had a wonderful time. We snuggled in my warm king size water bed. Then at about 2am, the phone rings. I answer and say “Hello?”.  The phone replies, “This is Harold Stanley, is Paula there?” I roll over and hand the phone to Paula and say it’s your Dad. Paula eventually talked to her mother. I don’t think that Harold ever told Mary where he found Paula. Apparently he had called her apartment and Joan gave him my phone number. Paula convinced her father that she was safe and warm.

Eventually, the [er] honeymoon was over and Paula had to go back to work. She had luckily been on a two day off period. So we had to figure out how to get her from Newton to Children’s Hospital. We made a sign for her and she managed to hitch a ride from nice folks who were out riding around. Then after about another couple of days I had to go back to work.

Peter Stuyvesant at Pier 4

 One other event of note that happened that week was the sinking of the “Peter Stuyvesant”. This was ship was once a famed Hudson River riverboat that was moored next to Anthony’s Pier Four in South Boston. The “Peter Sturvesant” was used for wedding receptions and other big parties. It was where the reception for my brother Rich’s wedding to Mary back in 1973. That was way before Paula’s time. But it was one hell of a party.

Here’s a pointer to the Wiki entry on the blizzard of 1978. And here’s a pointer to some pictures in the Boston Globe.

This entry was posted on January 23, 2016 at 11:25 pm and is filed under Massachusetts, New England. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: Blizzard of 1978