Marilyn

North Kingstown, Rhode Island

Fortunately, none of us were stranded. All of a sudden, around 11am, I realized this was a serious storm. At that time, my husband's office was on Post Road in Warwick, about seven miles from home in North Kingstown. Our part-time person left to pick up her daughter and I also decided it was time to go. I tried to persuade hubby to come also, but he had things to finish up, and since we had separate cars, I headed out. I soon realized that if I was ever going to make it home in my little Chevy Vega, I had to pace myself so I wouldn't have to stop for anything! I made the mental decision that if the light was red at Post and Ives Road I was going to ignore it as long as no traffic was coming north. I did exactly that, not stopping until I rolled into the garage. Hubby had the good sense to realize, soon after I left, that he should too. The kids got home from school OK, and we were grateful to all be home safe.

We had no power, but the gas furnace worked on a manual switch, and the gas stove provided cooked food. Learning to shop from a mother who survived the depression of the '30s came in handy—the pantry is always full, and includes dry milk, yeast, flour... all the basics. We played a lot of board games and ate ourselves silly. Once we could get out to shovel our very long driveway the kids and hubby piled up square blocks of snow and made a huge wall on one side of the drive. Some of the neighbors made sled runs for supplies and in general, it was a big neighborhood party for almost a week!

The only negative was that my father-in-law was in an intensive care unit in Massachusetts and if anything had happened to him, there was no way we could have gotten there.

Originally posted in the alt.rhode_island newsgroup, February 1, 2002, and February 8, 2003.