In December, as the holidays approach, we sing songs celebrating snow and the glories of walking in the winter wonderland. But have you ever noticed that there are no songs about snow in February? The East Coast is now digging out from a massive blizzard that started as one low-pressure system from the northwest collided with an offshore storm coming up from the south, then merged into a giant snow machine that whirled and dumped snow from Canada to New Jersey. They give them names now, this one was called “Nemo,” but they used to be anonymous, at least until after the fact. That didn’t make them any easier to deal with. In this age of 24-hour news and weather services, a storm’s potential is often over-hyped, because the networks want people to tune in. More viewers mean more advertising revenue, and it’s usually all about money these days. Here in northeastern Ohio, we were spared from Nemo’s wrath, but in Connecticut one town got over three feet of snow and Boston came close to its record with just under two feet of the white stuff. That’s just the way nature tosses the dice. Sometimes you’re lucky, other times, not so much.
Earlier this week we observed the 35th anniversary of another storm. Ohio wasn’t so lucky that time, and that storm also had a name, but it didn’t receive it until after it was over. It is known as the Great Blizzard of 1978, and if you lived through it, you probably remember it. I was in my senior year at Ohio State, and Columbus wasn’t as badly mauled as much of state, but I remember it well.
The storm formed without significant advance notice when a low-pressure system laden with moisture from the Gulf of Mexico joined with an arctic system coming out of the northwest. In Columbus, the storm started as rain and strong wind. I was hibernating in my apartment northwest of campus where I enjoyed a lifestyle that wasn’t the typical student squalor. I drove a newer Mercedes sedan to classes each morning and paid to park in a parking garage close to the business school. Dad owned a supermarket and a chain of convenience stores in the Canton area, and my pantry was well stocked, since I frequently raced home on weekends to restock. I had signed up to take the GMAT (Graduate Management Admissions Test) on Saturday, but I wasn’t studying, since it was just another test of general knowledge, and I’d had a ton of such tests by then. Being an Ohio native I was well acquainted with the foibles of the local weather, so I turned on my stereo and relaxed as the wind howled outside.
On the morning of January 26th a barometric reading of 28.28 inches of mercury was recorded in Cleveland as the storm passed over the city, setting a record low for non-tropical storms in the United States. In Columbus, the storm grew worse, and the temperature began to drop. I wasn’t aware that the parking lot of my apartment complex had flooded, and now the biting northern air was freezing the water in place. Late that night, I heard a commotion in the hallway, and opened my door to find a friend from my hometown and fellow student named Greg, and his friends. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably and he was soaking wet from the waist down. As I fetched him towels and a blanket, he explained that when he stepped out of the car, he broke through a thin layer of ice that covered a warmer pocket of water hidden beneath. It was deep enough that he had to be hauled out by his companions. Greg later followed in his father’s footsteps and became a banker. As such, I’m sure “friends” have bailed him out again since then, but this was a more literal baptism into the world that he would soon enter, where loans are "underwater" and "bailouts" way too frequent. Upon hearing his story, we began to think that perhaps this storm was more than a little different from our usual experience. We got Greg dried off as best we could, and after a quick beer they decided that they had best get home. Outside, the snow fell harder.
I fell asleep to the sounds of howling wind outside, but by morning things had calmed down considerably. Friday morning, the radio told everyone to stay at home as they summarized the massive damage throughout the state and beyond. Everyone was urged to stay off of the roads, which were considered impassable unless your car had tire chains. The DJ chuckled when he was going to announce closings for the day, then informed his listeners that basically everything was closed or canceled through the weekend. Then he mentioned the one exception: the GMAT exam would still be held as scheduled Saturday morning on the OSU campus. I bundled up in my warmest coat and stepped outside to check on my car. The skies were gray, but the sun was trying to break through the clouds. Everything else was white, covered in undisturbed snow. No one was outside and nothing was moving.
My car was parked in a carport just a few steps from my apartment. It was protected by a roof and a wall to the front of the car, but it was wide open to the rear and sides. Overnight, the wind driven rain had been pushed against the wall where it froze in place as the temperature dipped. I knew things were amiss when I stood next to my chocolate brown sedan, because I was looking down on it from an unaccustomed height. Snow was piled up against the hubcaps and the bottom of the tires weren’t visible. I got in the door, although I believe that it took a few minutes since water had been blown into every crevice where it then turned to ice. The car cranked for a little bit longer than normal, but eventually roared to life. I put it in gear and gently pressed the accelerator. The engine revved, but the car didn’t move. I revved some more, but nothing was happening. I got out and tried to dig down around the tires, but discovered that beneath the thin layer of windblown snow was solid ice.
I tried to free the tires by pouring a canister of table salt around the wheels, then waited for the ice to melt. An hour later, I tried again. I think I got the drive wheel to actually turn, which was an improvement, but by then I was certain that the car wasn’t going anywhere. I had to get to the test. I had already paid for it, and while I can’t remember how much it cost, I believe it was a couple of hundred dollars (it costs $250 now). So I came up with a plan. It was only four or five miles to campus. If there is one thing you learn how to do at Ohio State it is how to walk to get where you want to go. So I packed a little bag that had a shoulder strap, bundled up as best I could, and headed toward campus.
My plan was to walk to the Holiday Inn on Lane Avenue at the north edge of campus, spend the night, and then go to the test site early the next morning. I didn’t want to risk waiting until Saturday morning since I had no idea how long it would take to get there, or how tired I would be when I arrived. I struggled through my parking lot, and out to the main road, then walked around the corner, heading east toward campus. It was amazing to discover that the normally busy roads were completely deserted. There was no traffic at all. As I trudged along the roadway on Ackerman Road (the sidewalk was nowhere to be found), I heard the sound of a car approaching. I turned and saw a white Ford Bronco with light blue trim that had chains on its tires. It was heading toward me.
In 1978, four-wheel drive vehicles were relatively rare. The Bronco was an early model that was essentially a pickup truck with a cap on the back. I did something that I hadn’t done since I turned sixteen and got my driver’s license: I stuck out my thumb and started hitchhiking. The Bronco slowed to halt beside me and I opened the door and climbed in.
Now I’ve had some experience with hitching in the past. I had done it on several occasions, and had also picked up quite a few hitchhikers, including a young lady hitchhiking by herself on the highway as I was heading up to see a girlfriend at Bowling Green University. Those were simpler times, at least less dangerous, or we were just oblivious to any threats. Anyway, the first thing the guy behind the wheel said to me was, “I don’t usually pick up hitchhikers.”
I chuckled as I told him that I didn’t usually hitchhike, then explained that my Mercedes was frozen in place at my apartment, pointing back toward the complex. At this point you may be calling me an arrogant little prick (it’s been said before) for mentioning my Mercedes. But I could tell this guy was not comfortable picking up a hitchhiker, and wanted to put him at ease, so I had let him know that I drove an expensive car on typical days. He asked me where I was going, and I explained my situation with the test, and told him I was headed for the Holiday Inn on Lane. “Well, I can get you to Hudson,” he told me, referring to a street well north of my destination. I assured him that I could easily walk from there. One mile in the snow was much better than five miles.
He drove slowly, but we didn’t slip or slide. Passing the shopping center on the corner, I noted an almost empty parking lot, although steam was rising from an exhaust vent in the McDonalds. His planned route would have taken him straight ahead, but he instead turned south on Olentangy River Road, which made it easier to get where I was going. It was probably a smart move, since the roads in that direction were in a little better shape. “I’ll just drop you off at the Holiday Inn,” he told me. “No sense in walking through this stuff if you don’t have to.” I thanked him. My plan was an arduous trek of several hours through deep snow. It became a ten-minute ride in a heated truck, with almost door-to-door service.
The Lane Avenue Holiday Inn was sort of a home away from home for me. I stayed there when I came down for Freshman Orientation in the summer of 1974. I lived there at the start of my sophomore year for two weeks in 1975 while waiting for my apartment to become available in October. Now, as the end of my senior year approached, I was home again. Getting a room was no problem. Seems they had only a handful of guests. I went to my room, unbundled myself from the heavy winter gear, stowed my meager baggage, and headed down to the bar for some refreshment and an early supper. Then it was back to my cozy little room to fall asleep watching news stories about the horrible devastation and death that had been wrought by the great blizzard.
I got up early thanks to the wake-up call that I had requested at check-in. I showered and dressed, then headed down to the dining room for a hearty pre-test breakfast. I don’t remember what I ordered, but it did include a large orange juice and coffee. Caffeine is just the thing to clear the cobwebs for a major test. The dining room was nearly deserted. I think only one or two other tables were occupied. Of course it was early on a Saturday morning, and we did just have that record shattering blizzard and all. The busboy tasked with refilling coffee cups had little to keep him occupied, so he made frequent trips to my table where I gladly accepted his generous pours. I finished breakfast, then arranged for a late checkout since the test wouldn’t be over until close to noon. I grabbed my coat and supplies and stepped outside to head to the test site located in a building where I had never been, just north of Ohio State’s famous “Oval” at the center of campus. Outside, the sun reflected brightly off of the layer of white that still covered everything.
The campus of The Ohio State University is one of the physically largest college campuses in the world (around 1,700 acres). There is pastureland on campus where cattle graze for the School of Agriculture, but that’s on the other side of the river. The size of the student body at OSU is also numbered among the top ten in the nation, with over 40,000 students at the time. Walking toward my destination, I was struck with just how few people I saw. It was early on a Saturday morning, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I had the strange feeling of being almost alone as I walked to the test.
We filed into the test room and each found a desk. There was little conversation, but most of it was about the blizzard and what a bitch it had been to get here. The proctor told us about the test and the rules. In most tests like this, one can get up and use the bathroom anytime you need to. Not this time. There was one break at the midpoint of the four-hour test. All papers and pencils had to be turned in before you left the room. Apparently they were afraid that the one janitor who had managed to show up for work in the middle of a multi-state blizzard would be passing out test answers in the bathroom. I never saw him if he was doing this and might have been skeptical about the usefulness of such advice in any case.
The test started, and I got down to work. Many people suffer from test anxiety, but I was an old hand at tests of this type, and didn’t worry. During the first section of the test, I began to get messages from my bladder, reminding me of the copious amount of coffee that I had consumed at breakfast. I focused my attentions on the work at hand and carried on, as my leg began to bounce in an effort to hold off relief. The second section of the test was the math section, and it was a royal bitch. By then I had to pee so bad that I couldn’t concentrate. I no longer really cared about the test or its implications for my future. You see I wasn’t planning to go to graduate school after I got my Bachelor’s Degree. The fact was that as graduation loomed in five months, I had no idea what I was going to do for the rest of my life, or at least what to try first. Perhaps it had to do with my brother’s death almost a decade earlier, in late 1969. I wasn’t much of a planner, and thought skeptically about the future. After all, we could die at any time, right? Man plans and God laughs. I knew exactly what that meant. I began to randomly mark down answers, willing the hands of the clock to move to break time.
I finished the section before anyone else and waited with my leg bouncing in time to music that didn’t play. As the proctor announced the break, I was already on my way to his desk to turn in my test materials, then raced off to find the men’s restroom. I unzipped in front of a urinal and finally experienced the nirvana of relief that I had yearned for. The room filled up (the vast majority of would-be MBAs at that time were male). The porcelain receptacles on either side of me were occupied, used, and relinquished to the next man, and still I whizzed on. I think I finished when the second guy to use the urinal next to me did, but it might have been the third one. I was fairly overcome with blissful release at this point, and didn’t really care. I returned to the test room and finished the exam, able to concentrate once again, but with the horrible feeling that I really blew the test, big time.
The test finally wrapped-up and I made sure to visit the restroom again before trudging back to the hotel to retrieve my things. Outside, things were beginning to move again. I saw more people, and cars were able to travel the main roads. I don’t actually remember how I got back to my apartment, but I think I took a taxi. It would be several more days until I got my car out of the carport.
During the Great Blizzard of 1978, fifty-one people died as a result of the storm in Ohio alone. The National Guard was called out to help with rescues. The entire Ohio Turnpike was completely shut down for the first time in history. People perished in their cars waiting for help that couldn’t get through. I had to hitchhike to a nice hotel, then take a test where I couldn’t go to the bathroom when I needed to. Man plans and God laughs. Some people are luckier than others are. All in all, I’ve been pretty lucky. After a short stint in the restaurant business, I returned to The Ohio State University where I learned to fly an airplane and enrolled in the Graduate School of Business. I didn’t have to take the GMAT again because I did pretty well the first time around, even in the part where I guessed. Sometimes you’re lucky, other times, not so much.
As a postscript, there’s one aspect of this story that I had never thought about until I started writing about it. Near the beginning of Winter Quarter in 1981, I was about to finish the MBA program at Ohio State. One of the requirements was the successful completion of a comprehensive examination, which was held on a Saturday morning. I’m not sure, but it had to be late-January or early-February, although the weather was clear, sunny and mild, unlike three years earlier. I made certain not to drink too much coffee before the test, and finished it without incident. I was confident that I passed, and having no other pressing assignments for the rest of the weekend, I was on my way home to party and relax.
I was coming out of campus on a road I rarely used, near Olentangy River Road and the State Route 315 overpass. I was proceeding straight north through the intersection with a line of cars waiting to turn left to my west, and the traffic light was green in my direction. As I entered the intersection my Mercedes was struck in the left front fender, just in front of my driver’s side door, by a white Ford Bronco with light blue trim. I later found out that because of the sun’s glare, the woman behind the wheel couldn’t tell if the light was red or green for her. She chose incorrectly and ran a red light. No one was injured in the accident (thank you Mercedes-Benz, for building such a safe car, because it was a similar accident that took my brother’s life), but it did put a whole new spin on my day. My car was in the shop for at least a month, and I drove a rented Ford Granada (advertised at the time as being “just like a Mercedes”- they weren’t) almost until graduation. I don’t think it was the same Ford Bronco that had come to my rescue before, but it was pretty similar. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Coincidence can be a bitch.
The author and his car, with the infamous carport visible in the background
(Pre-blizzard)
The vehicle I really needed when the snow hit
