The Blizzard of '78 ... 30th Anniversary

Today, thirty-years-ago, was a very special, totally unique event.

The great Blizzard of 1978.

Anyone of a certain age (say born by 1972) from Boston, New England or the Northeast in general, no doubt, remembers it vividly.

In a little over 24-hours, Boston got 27-inches of snow dumped on it, in a classic, wind-howling blizzard, that, was of such power and force, it shut down the city for a week.

It gets lost in the legend, that we already had a good deal of snow on the ground, including a pretty good storm that gave us a foot-plus about a week before the The Blizzard of '78.

This writer spent the night of the blizzard over a friend's apartment, playing cards, drinking and smoking, stumbling home around 5AM, walking the few blocks through the punishing winds and blistering snow

Once all the snow and wind ended, it was pretty amazing - no sound.

No cars or trucks, the city was absolutely quiet.

I can remember, a few days later, when they finally started clearing the snow (at least from the main streets), seeing big payloaders dig into a massive mounds of snow on Cambridge Street, in East Cambridge, and dumping it in equally-large dump trucks - and seeing a small, green MG come tumbling out (and I knew the guy, on 7th street, that owned the car).

In those days, I worked part-time at the legendary Brattle Theatre, in Harvard Square, and it was party atmosphere.

With no cars on the road, the Square was buzzing with throngs of people, hanging out, some traveling via cross-country skis, and everyone just groovin' on the newly-imposed quiet. Everyone was getting used to having no cars around, and liking it very much.

It was heavy in the spirit of we were all going through something, big, something special.

And everybody was just groovin' on it.


Bonus Blizzard of '78 Links

The Blizzard of '78 Gallery

Blizzard Of '78 Anniversary

Blizzard of '78 Photos

Editor's Note - Technical Difficulties - Namely, 11-Inches of Snow!

Good Evening Garlic Fans

Hope you are well - especially those of you in the Northeast (or wherever), perhaps still digging out of this LATE AUTUMN, hours-long mini-blizzard just received.

Where the Garlic Patch sits, 11-inches of, mostly, light, powdery snow to deal with (there was, briefly, near the end, some sleet or frozen rain mix in it, giving the last inch, or two, a bit more weight).

And, if you are in the area, I hope you find the political huffing-and-puffing over the storm, or more to-the-point, clearing the roads, most, deliciously, humorous.










Quite the amount of chest-beating going on, over drives and travel, that, normally would take 20-minutes, turned into 4-5-hours ordeals yesterday, due to heavily-falling snow, causing vehicles to go at the breakneck speed of a mile-or-two-an-hour.

Where were the sanders, where were the plows, the leather-lunged pols were screaming, with red face and bulging neck veins.

Well, they were stuck in the same traffic, being that business shut down and let people go home all at the same time ... Schools ran their full day, not letting students out early, which had their buses in the middle of the gridlock (and students getting home, 5-6-hours later, in many cases).

And all this brouhaha was in the face of the local weatherman, who called it exactly as it played out, imploring, beseeching, people to listen, as the height of the heaviest snow would be falling during the commuting hours.














So, we are having Technical Difficulties this evening, chiefly, I am far too tired to finish off three posts already started, with any thing close to level of creativity that I demand, let alone you, our readers.

True, I could turn to replicating - copy-and-pasting - just about anything coming out of the Bush Grindhouse, and the humor and satire content-of-the-day would be met.

But that isn't how it works.

It is with gasping, and ebbing, energy I type this note, having just risen from the second of two, deep, power naps in the past three-hours.

So, with a good, sound night of sleep (hopefully, oh yes, ever so hopefully), we will be back on the case tomorrow, the calm before our next storm on Sunday (shaping up to be a snow-rain mix here).

Thanks again for visiting, and reading, The Garlic.

Peace
JTD