10 years from being born :-0

I was eight, and my mom was pregnant with my sister Alyson. My father was in California on a sales trip, and I clearly remember my mother shoveling the front driveway while hugely pregnant. At eight, I didn't jump in to help or anything, but the vision stuck with me.......I also remember thinking it was so cool when we lost electricity because we put all our refrigerator items out in the snow. Exciting. And Alissa - that's enough out of you.

I was 12 and we were living in the Appalachian foothills in Northwest NJ and I don't think we got hit as hard as New England. We always got a lot of snow there and it didn't stand out to me there. I think the storm moved over us and stalled over New England.

I had just turned 15 and was working at a gas station. I was the only one who live close enough to walk to the station, we were open the entire storm for emergency vehicles. I worked the whole storm. I had a blast.

It was my senior year at Milford High. I had just dropped my girl friend off after school and remember having a hard time getting home. By the second day after my dad walked downtown to open up Ray & Dick's Bakery. He baked for everyone he could. I was working at Johnny Jacks. I made it into work a few days after the storm. I'd sleep at the bakery and back to J&J's. What a time it was.

It was the first round of the BeanPot and it is again tonight!
I also remember having at least week off from elementary school afterwards!
We used a sled and not a car to go grocery shopping too!

I was 13 years old and remember no school for a week. The snowdrifts at the front door of our apartment went almost as high as the door. I walked with my Mom after a few days to Iandoli's supermarket (now Shaws) for groceries, we had to walk through knee high snow and follow paths that others had made on the roads because the plows didn't come for 4 days!! Incredible experience I will never forget.

I was 20 and working at Data General in Southboro. It took us 3 hours to get from Route 9 Southboro to Marlboro Main St. Out of work that whole week! I had never seen so many people walking in my life! Every person we passed said hi! I remember taking sleds and walking to stores for bread, milk, cigarettes and delivering them to people who were stranded and couldn't get out of their houses. I was getting married that June and we honestly thought there would be snow on the ground! I also remember that we had a hard time finding our cars as the drifts covered most of them!

I was 10 years old. We lived in a 3-decker and the snow drifts in the back yard were higher than the first floor's porch. We jumped off the 2nd floor into the snow drifts. We built a long, windy, and bumpy slide down the driveway.
When we lost power, it got so cold that our fish tank cracked and we had to put the fish in a big tub of water. We covered it with a towel, but the kitty cat still got them. We had a little lizard guy who ate the algea. We never found him. Maybe the kitty got him?

I was 20 years old. Getting ready to go in the Marine Corps. And I sat in my living room drinking beer watching the snow bury my car. Half the engine and transmission were out of it getting rebuilt. It to 2 weeks to unbury and put back together.

Was married two months before, got stranded in the mini mansion that we were watching for the owners on Highland St Holliston.
Driveway was at least 300 ft long and car was buried at the first ten feet of it.
I couldn't get in as the snow was too deep by 6 pm when I got there..
Cool place to spend the honeymoon, with two big English wolfhounds.
Jim@ccfiile.com

I was activated by the MA National Guard and spent a few days digging out and then was posted at exits along rte 128 to keep the road clear for the engineers from Ft. Bragg to do their job.

these are some real awesome story's. I wasn't born yet, but I hear about it all the time. It amazes and scares me at the same time, lol.

Thank you for adding the photos, Jim. Nothing tells that story like the photos. I'm not sure what's more shocking, seeing what 16 looked like in 1978 or looking at the buried cars.

I was 14 years old and had just arrived from Scotland 2 weeks before during the first blizzard 1/21/78. I remember thinking wow this is some place to live! We lived on Adam Wheeler and I remember us jumping of the roof into the snow. It was unbelievable. Everything was closed down and only emergency vehicles could be out on the roads. I remember crowds of us walking down the middle of Norfolk St. to Russells supermarket to pick up food for our homes and for elderly neighbors. Everyone helped each other to dig out cars and driveways. There was very little school in February if I remember correctly.

I was in the National Guard and was stationed at Rte 128 & Rte 1. People were refusing to leave their cars, even though the snow was up to the rooftops of their cars and we were worried that they would freeze to death. One night spent in their cars and running out of gas trying to keep warm convinced them to leave. My own family had to be evacuated from our home because the shallow roof was bending under the weight of the snow but I had to stay at my post. We shuttled medical personnel back and forth to hospitals. It seemed like time stood still for almost a week.

I was 14 and my family had just moved to Massachusetts a few months before so this was our first experience with winter here, one I'll never forget. The hardest part was wondering if my Mom was going to make it home (she did) and all the shoveling we had to do. We couldn't even open the front screen door because the snow was piled so high. This storm wasn't the only big one that winter. It was fun to be out of school for a week, though!

I was a week from turning 11 when the storm hit. I lived in Quincy in a section called Germantown. My dad was one o the last cars off of rt 128 before it shutdown. Since this was before cell phones we didn't know if he would make it home. I remember waking up in the middle of the night feeling the entire house shake because an army bulldozer was trying to move a 10' pile of snow. I was out of school for 3 weeks and my parents would take our sleds and walk 2.5 miles to Stop and Shop to get food. They would leave @ 10am and return by 4pm.

I was 12 and living in Woonsocket, RI where we got the jackpot, over three feet of snow. I recall these enormous plow trucks came from Buffalo, NY to help us out. The tires were as tall as a person and the double-wide plows were about as wide as the street. The house would shake when they drove by. We lived across from a steep hill that turned into a sledding spot for the several days we had no school and we kids had a blast. Unfortunately we had some trouble getting provisions as the stores emptied and we ate pretty weird. My mother made due with what was in the pantry, like canned green beans for breakfast. I totally understand the rush for milk and bread when a storm is coming.

I was nine and it was a blast. We lived at the bottom of a hill that the plows could not climb. 2 snow plows and a front loader got stuck in our neighborhood before they gave up. I remember enormous snow fortes, jumping, and even diving off second story decks into the snow drifts. And driving a snowmobile (at age 9) to Iandoli’s for all the neighbors. Never thought or cared about all the scary stuff the adults must have been thinking. It was a blast! I would love for my kids to get a taste of that.

I was 17 and met my future husband on a snowy East Main St. Back in that day you could hitch hike and no cars were allowed on the road but low and behold Billy Orlando was out wreaking havoc in his Saab. My friend Laura and I were determined to make it to a party at Lake Chauncy and Billy picked us up and gave us a ride. I didn't see him for several months but he saw me. In pursuit of happiness, he seemed to find me everywhere I went. The rest is history. Another great past time in the blizzard was riding our horses to the center of town from the end of Milk Street. The Smith's and the Barry's - we had a blast in the aftermath of the storm.

I was 15 years old, and lived with my parents and two young sisters (5 and 7) in Hull, a couple of blocks from the beach. For the first and only time of my childhood, the rising ocean water did not just claim the beachfront homes, but most of the peninsula. We had about 3 feet of the Atlantic in in the first floor of our house... and were rescued from the second story porch by men in a row boat. Spent the next three days living with several hundred people in the halls of the Memorial Middle School. No showers, so it was quite a pungent experience after a while! I remember having to wade back through the freezing waters a day or so later to retrieve some items for my family. Later we spent about a week staying with friends in Hingham while enough work could be done to the house to make it liveable (at least on the second floor.)
Made for some great stories... though NOT an experience I would care to repeat. :-)

I was 15, living in north Framingham in the house my Mom still lives in today. I remember spending hours shoveling the driveway with my Dad; we have pictures of us standing in front of the snow banks twice as tall as us. The roads weren't cleared for a few days, so people in the neighborhood walked with sleds to the Big Wonder supermarket in Nobscot (sadly now long gone as is most of that plaza).

I was 12 and living in Manomet, the equivalent of probably two city blocks to the beach. Our house was up on a little hill, and I don't remember any epic snowdrifts. Life in Manomet was normally pretty quiet, and I honestly don't remember much disruption, except that we didn't get our normal milk delivery, and had to drink powdered milk with our cereal. When the storm had passed, my mother took my sister and I down to one of the dirt roads closer to the beach. It was no longer a road, and there were no longer any recognizable residences there . . . I was completely awestruck by the power of the ocean as it roared along what used to be a rural but residential road. Amazing.

French people I was 34 having training at Digital Equipment in Marlborought. I Lived Marlborought plant at 16h30 in order to get my appartment in Framingham. I did not knows I was next to my appartment when I an other peoples were stucks on road cause trucks were unable to go further.. I will be rescued in a school for about 24 hours.

I was 21 years old and went to work at Foster Forbes Glass factory at 4pm on Feb. 6th. Many of my co-workers kept a vigil watch of the snow and into the parking lot, periodically asking our boss if we could go him early. He didn't let us leave until midnight, after it became obvious the power was not coming back on. I had a 75 mustang at the time and could not find my car....or for that matter any other cars. One of the guys working in the warehouse had kept his pick up truck clear of snow and a bunch of us jumped into the back of his truck and as he drove down Main St. we would jump off as close to our homes as possible. I jumped of near a friends house and we walked almost 2 blocks in snow that came up to our waste's. I though we were going to die! We finally arrived at her apartment to find the door was covered in a huge snow drift clear to the top. We finally managed to get in and then spent the next few weeks visiting other friends and making sure to stop by all the Mom n' Pop stores to buy any beer available. I even remember one of those evenings with the National Guard thought we had been grocery shopping and offered to give us a ride home. There we were toting paper backs of loose beer cans and bottles. About 10 days later, I was able to dig my car out and eventually went back to park. That was a dangerous time - but we made the best of it!