Rocky's New Home

Back on December 25th I said I would post a picture of Rocket J Squirrel in his new place after the holiday decor was put away. Here it is! He now keeps Nameless, Faceless Baby Doll company, while he looks out over the area where the birds and wild squirrels feed on seeds. Rocky is very happy as he is warm and dry...which is more than his counterparts in the wild can say.

New England Snow Storms

Recently the Hartford Courant (http://www.courant.com) has been running a series of stories compiled from the last 250 years. I haven't paid much attention to them...until today.

In this morning’s Courant, the “250 Years—Moments in History”—was all about monster snow storms that have hit New England, and specifically Connecticut, over the last 250 years.

You can read the article here: (It may be available for only a short period of time) http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/courant-250/hc-250-snowstorms-blizzard-weather,0,3451839.htmlstory

My kids and I had our own adventure during the Blizzard of 1978 (Storm Larry). I wrote about in in my Christmas book "Come Ride With Me", Vol. 1. At the time, the woman mentioned in the story lived in a small house behind ours and shared the driveway and garage space.

A Blizzard Named Larry  —  FEBRUARY 6-7, 1978

We knew a snowstorm was coming, but no one knew just how intense it would be.

It was Monday and I had gone to the store for groceries to see us through the storm. As I put the car into my section of the garage, “T” was standing there looking strange. When I got out of my car she said to me, “I’m going to commit suicide.” At first I didn’t believe her then I looked at her again. “Well, if you do, please do it on your own side of the wall. I don’t want your mess on my side.” I was all heart as you can see.

I brought the groceries into the house and told the kids what had just happened. I recognized what she had just done was a cry for help; what made me mad was the fact she had involved me and I felt responsible for her. Her! Of all people! The two of us had an ugly history, but that’s another story.

I called the visiting nurse in town who I knew to be a friend of “T”’s and told her what had happened. In the meantime, the snow had begun falling and was accumulating fast. The visiting nurse arrived accompanied by the local police. After an hour or so, an ambulance came and took “T” away through the rapidly deepening snow.

For the remainder of the storm we listened to the radio for information on the outside world. We also watch cars being abandoned right and left on Route 5. At one point a VW Bug (the original model) was stopped at the traffic light at Route 5 in front of the high school. Along came an ambulance (with a patient inside we later learned) and we watched it run right up and over the VW. That brought police and two more ambulances—one a replacement of the first and the other for the driver of the car. Driving conditions were so bad that drivers were unable to navigate the deep snow and they couldn't see through the white-out conditions.

The storm lasted two days. At the end of that time, Governor Ella T. Grasso, closed everything in the state for 3 days so clean-up could be done.

The day after it stopped snowing, we had about three feet of snow in the driveway, and along came an ambulance. “T” was dropped off at the edge of the road and made to wade through the snow to her house. It seems she has an ugly history with many people.

The ambulance attendants were pretty angry. They had trudged through all that snow to get her to the hospital and they were not going to do it again. “T” decided she didn’t want to stay. The ambulance crew told us she was nuttier than a fruitcake! We knew that.

Eventually a truck showed up to plow the driveway—I think it was the landlord’s son. He hooked the plow onto the dumpster to move it out of the way, and tipped it forward, dumping garbage bags everywhere. It took over an hour for the plow to get the dumpster set upright and all the garbage re-collected. We watched from the window in an upstairs room and laughed hysterically! The landlord’s son was not one of our favorites, either.

On Cape Cod: This was the storm that took out Coast Guard Beach, the parking lot and bath houses, and most of the dunes south toward Nauset inlet. The Outermost House was thrown way back into Nauset Marsh/Salt Pond never to be seen again. This storm was just the beginning of major erosion that goes on to this day.