John
Centennial, Colorado
I was three and a half years old during the Blizzard of '78, but as a native Roe Dylandah now living in Colorado, I still make the bread-and-milk run when it snows here.
We had the Colorado Blizzard of 2003 last March. They were predicting a foot of snow the night before it started, which really isn't a whole lot for a big storm out here. I went to work that morning, and every once in a while I checked out the window and saw how fast the snow was accumulating. And as I looked at the big, heavy, wet flakes, all of a sudden I remembered my mom's description of the Blizzard of '78, which included huge, wet flakes falling at an incredible rate.
They let us out of work early (as they had let my dad out of work early 25 years earlier) and as I drove home, I noticed how cars were already getting stuck in the snow. This included SUVs. Again, shades of the tales of 1978.
(Aside: You can always spot Colorado transplants during big storms. They're in the SUV that is driving like a bat out of hell and flashing their headlights at you for doing 25 in a 55. Within three miles, you'll see them again... flipped over, rear ending someone, or stuck in a snowdrift bigger than the one in the commercial.)
As I neared home, I started to make the left turn to go into my apartment complex, but remembered: the bread and milk run! So I turned right and went to the grocery store. I picked up bread and milk, and left the store. In the 15 minutes I'd been in the store, my car became covered in snow. So I turned around, went into the store, and bought more milk, more bread, and plenty of food. A healthy 12-year-old boy lived with me at the time, so I shopped with the mindset of feeding him, me, and his mother for a week. You can imagine the final total. But the fact that I thought of having enough to feed them for a week shows that time and distance do not erase the bread-and-milk mentality.
And damned if I didn't turn on the news in the morning and hear Channel 9 doing a telephone interview with a Blizzard of '78 survivor from Cranston.
Received via email, November 2, 2003.