Village Squire, 1978-02, Page 9Memori&$
of a snowstorm
Notes from one commuter's diary
BY
LIAN LAWRENCE
Winter driving didn't bother me. I was used to it. or so I
thought. For the past two winters. 1 had commuted 100 miles a
day. and this %%inter 1 was covering 140 miles daily. But then...
The day began as any other. At 7:15 a.m., 1 left my London
apartment to drive to work. How was 1 to know then that that
normally three-hour round trip would stretch into a three-day
affair?
It was a cold. windy Tuesday, that day in January. The ground
was snow: -packed; the sky and the highway were clear. But they
remained clear for only the first 15 miles or so. Then, snowflakes
began falling, fluttering in the wind. Some ten or fifteen miles
later. though. the snowflakes were no longer fluttering. They
'.crc falling furiously against my windshield. I couldn't see well
at all. The road was becoming increasingly slippery. I slowed the
car to 40 m.p.h. Should I turn back? Several times 1 asked myself
that question. but my procrastinating nature permitted me to
evadethe issue --for the time being.
By 8:30, 1 had reached the half -way point. Ever more violently
the snow: descended; ever more forcefully the wind howled. It
‘..as becoming more and more difficult for me to control my
Volkswagen and niy tears. The car swerved into the left lane. I
whimpered. Then 1 berated myself: "You imbecile" I said out
loud "no job is worth risking your life for. Even if you arrive
safely, you still %. ill have the long drive home. What's the matter
with you any‘.av? Why don't you simply turn around?"
Well. the snowdrifts covered the shoulders of the road. and
part of the high%. ay as well. At that point, there was no place to
turn around.
The sign read "Brucefield". I was getting there. The storm,
wasn't worsening now, but it wasn't subsiding either. My eyes
ached from the strain of trying to see where I was going. I felt
tired. Controlling the vehicle required all of my energy. And I
felt bored. Driving through a blinding snowstorm at 30 m.p.h. is
not exactly the most stimulating activity. I was scared.
I had felt like this just once before. I comforted myself by
recalling that I had survived that nightmare, and it was actually
worse than the one I was experiencing (if that was possible).
Therefore, I reasoned, I ought to be able to handle this situation.
The time and the roads were different, yet the progressive
agitation of the elements was astonishingly similar.
Christmas 1969. The Great Storm had halted all of eastern
Ontario and Quebec, as well as northeastern U.S.A. My husband
and I were motoring from Stratford to Vermont, via Montreal. Of
course, there was no storm when we left home. It wasn't until
near Kingston that we realized we were in for a long trip. And
near Cornwall we began to understand just how long.
All the rest of the way to Montreal we were forced to keep our
speed. along the MacDonald -Cartier Freeway and Routes 20
and 40, to a maximum of 35 m.p.h. That speed, along with four
wrong turns (including one that landed us at the Vermont
border) delayed by seven hours our miraculously safe arrival in
St. -Basile-le-Grand, a few miles east of Montreal. Once there,
we remained snowbound for three days. It was the first time in
my life that I had been snowbound. It certainly wasn't to be the
last. During those three days in St. -Basile six feet of snow fell
over Vermont. A newscaster reported that it was the worst storm
that state had experienced in a quarter century. We headed
home.
VILLAGE SQUIRE/FEBRUARY 1978, 7.