Opinion|Mike Hardman: Remembering Blizzard of 1978

Listen, my children and you will hear why when it’s a blizzard we buy bread, milk, and beer.

When the Great Blizzard of 1978 left us stranded for days, we drank a lot of beer, played a lot of cards and did a lot of snow shoveling. As totals go, it was somewhere near 30 feet, depending on where you lived. That’s if you were able to get even home for days.

Those of us of a certain age have on tales to tell of how we survive the three days of snow, wind, and flooding.

My tale starts with being a high school senior not far from here and ends here at UMass-Dartmouth then SMU. When the snow hit, I was trying to get college applications done and deciding where to go. After the snow started melting, I went to North Dartmouth and heard the tales of how the campus survived the big blizzard.

“We went to the package store with four-wheel drive vehicles,” told an upperclassman on my visit. Beer and college, where do I sign?

In the romantic version of that time, we all came out of homes, gathered and talked about the storm and was left at the store. If you have a sled, it was quickly put into service gathering food and beverages. We were off the grid, although, in 1978, there wasn't much of a need to be on the grid. We didn’t have home computers, cell phones or cable. I know anyone for under 30, that’s tough to believe, but when the power went off, we talked.

While those of us of a certain age still get a shiver down on our spine when blizzards are mention, we’ll never see a one like 1978 again. We have better weather-predicting tools these days, so we won’t be surprised like that again. Back in the old days, we wait until the snow stopped to start plowing. Now, we get ahead of things so it doesn’t build up.

Fortunately, for those of us of a certain age, we can always tell tales about the Blizzard of 1978 and why you need bread, milk, and beer when snow falls.

Cape Cod author Don Wilding will be on "The Phil Paleologos Show" in the 9 a.m. hour to talk about how the storm affected the coastline. He also has produced a video series on the storm.

What’s your story about the Blizzard of 1978?

Mike Hardman is the digital managing editor. His opinions are solely his own.