The Blizzard of '66

Was driving along yesterday and the weather guys on the radio were chatting about the impending snow storm next week...in the process they mentioned it was the 43rd anniversary of the "Blizzard of '66."

My head spun...one of those things that you remember very clearly but that gets shoved into some drawer in the grey matter to be pulled out when the time stamp gets triggered.

This photo is from the web of the Blizzard of 1966 posted by a fellow named "John. " Thanks! I looked but don't seem to have any pics around of the event...I was only in 6th grade at the time.

My parents, Tony and Stell, had gone off to an Elks convention somewhere on the Eastern Shore of Maryland for the weekend so we had been shunted off to one of my aunts. Asked Mom about that once and she said the only reason the convention finally broke up was because the liquor finally ran out! 

This being the days before  The Weather Channel or 24 hour news, when things were slower...it seemed to come as a surprise to everyone.

Mom and Dad didn't make it home till Wednesday of that week. I abandoned my Aunt Margarets house on Monday for the much more interesting Aunt Mea's. She was a little crazy and had a son about my age. There was a lot more freedom there. Down at the end of their street was a little Italian market and sometime during the whiteout we managed to walk there and bought a pizza to take back. It may seem crazy in this day and age, but it was my first pizza. You couldn't buy a frozen one and so if you wanted one you usually had to go to an Italian place, which where I grew up in Cumberland were few and far between.

You often hear stories of that time about how schools never closed in bad weather and people still got around OK. Well that's a bunch of tosh. We were out of school for more than a week, and being downtown I could see that streets were empty with folks having to travel on foot. I remember lots of storms like that.

I seem to remember the National Guard coming out with Duce and a half's (Trucks) to help essential personal get to where they need to be.

Now if only this storm on Monday night materializes...so I can enjoy yet another weather induced free space! It will be fun to hear..."We never closed schools..."