Anyone remember what we all were doing 24 years ago today?
I do.
I was waking up in a bed in the old Green Valley Motor Inn.
With a man.
Yes, the Blizzard of '96 made for some strange bedfellows.
It started early in the morning of Jan. 6. It did not stop for two days. In the interim, 33 inches of snow fell on the region.
Everything came to a stop.
We created a newspaper that Sunday, but we couldn't deliver it.
The governor had ordered everything but emergency trucks off the roads. Eventually the paper was delivered two days later.
I was working the desk that Sunday, and with forecasts of a monster storm bearing down on the region, I had spent a restless night getting up the checking out the window to see if it had started snowing.
The flakes started falling about 3 a.m., and I decided to head into the office. My wife, soon to be home alone with two kids, was not thrilled.
Remember, these were the days before the internet. To put out the newspaper, first you had to get into the office.
By daylight - or what passed for it - a full-blown blizzard had the region in its clutches.
Only a few of us made it into the plant.
I would not make it home for two days.
It is the only time in 37 years I have not made it home from work.
Did I mention that my wife was not thrilled?
It also marks the only time I was truly scared. That was at the end of the night. We decided to walk to the CVS that was on the corner, where our insane maintenance chief, John Stier, said he would pick us up and get us to the Green Valley up on Baltimore Pike, where we had booked rooms for the night.
At one point during that short walk in waist-deep snow on Mildred Avenue, it dawned on me that this was probably not a good idea. The snow was blinding, whipped by the wind and stinging your face. I wondered if they might find us days later, still buried in the snow in the middle of Mildred Avenue.
Eventually we made it to the CVS, and to his credit, John showed up in his old Chevy Caprice. We piled in and what followed was without question the wildest car ride of my life. It took us about 45 minutes. I still don't know how we made it.
When I got to the Green Valley, I called my wife, who of course was worried sick that she hadn't heard from me since the time we left the office. Have I mentioned she wasn't thrilled?
The next morning, we awoke to find it was still snowing. We walked down Oak Avenue to the office, where I saw nothing but a snow drift where I hoped my car was still sitting.
I spent a second night at the Green Valley that night.
I still think they should have at least put a marker there to note the survivors of the Blizzard of '96 before they knocked the place down.
I think that storm - and that experience - is one of the reasons I despise winter.
It's something I will never forget.
Today, with the evolution of the internet, I can put the newspaper out from my kitchen table.
That wasn't the case 24 years ago.
I survived the Blizzard of '96. How about you?
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