Being in the dead of winter with lots of Throwback pictures on Facebook pages, I got to thinking about what was called the Blizzard of ’78. In 1978, I was hauling dressed poultry from Maplewood Poultry in Belfast to customers in New England and New York.

On Febr. 6, a Monday, I left Belfast for New York City with a load of chickens destined for 125th Street in Harlem. In the afternoon, when I got into Massachusetts, the snow was really coming down and by dark, I decided that I had to get off I-495 because visibility was almost zero. I found a shopping center just off the road in Chelmsford and called the dispatcher.

Despite my description of the conditions and suggesting that we should detour the load to a closer customer, he insisted that I continue to New York City.

After giving my situation some more thought, I decided that food was important and being able to move the truck was important. There was a grocery store in the shopping center so I bought a loaf of bread and some bologna and headed back to the truck for supper. Still thinking I could make my NYC delivery by 6 a.m., I decided after supper to take a nap and set the alarm for 11 p.m. If I left Chelmsford at 11, I could still make NYC by 6.

At 11 p.m. when the alarm went off, it was snowing harder than it was when I went to sleep. Trucks were plowing the parking lot so when they had a place cleaned out; I moved the truck over to that area. After watching things for a while, it was clear that I wasn’t going to be in NYC in the morning, so I went back to bed, leaving the decision of my next move to the morning. A couple more times in the night as the plows worked, I moved the truck again.

On Tuesday morning, I listened to the CB radio and I had bologna sandwiches for breakfast. I heard that traffic was moving on I-495 so I decided to get underway. Never before or since have I seen such a sight. Cars and trucks were everywhere. There was a path that swerved from lane to lane around the stranded vehicles but it was just one lane and there were no exits. When I got to the I-290 exit, it was filled with cars with snow up to their hoods. No getting off there.

Routes 9 and 20 were the same. At the toll booth for the Mass Pike, nobody in the booth. A free ride!

By the time I reached the first service plaza, I could see that continuing was not the smartest thing to do, so I pulled into Dr. Doom’s and found a place to park. The trucks that had been there since the first of the storm were snowed in and people were carrying fuel cans to the stuck trucks to keep them running. As luck would have it, a friend of mine from Maine was in the service plaza on his way to NYC, too, with a load of eggs.

Don Shields (the father of the radio guy) and I chatted on the radio and listened for road reports toward Hartford, trying to decide if it was smarter to move or smarter to stay put.

As daylight was starting to fade, we heard a driver report that the sun was coming out in Hartford. This is probably a good time to share that most truck drivers are liars. Not in a nasty malicious way, but they stretch the truth and sometimes make up stuff just to see where it goes.

This was clearly the case as Don and I put the trucks in gear and headed for Hartford. That afternoon the question of which came first was clear. The eggs were ahead of the chickens so the eggs clearly came before the chickens, but I couldn’t see anything except the back of Don’s trailer.

At this point, there was no turning back and no place to get off the highway, so we had to keep going. Later that evening, the eggs and the chickens arrived at Secondi Bros. Truck Stop in Milford, Connecticut.

Secondi Bros. is no longer there as the facility it was back then, but it was the last stop before NYC, so it was popular for the Maine trucks. There was nothing special about the place except there was plenty of parking. It was dirty and the food wasn’t anything special; yet, it was a comfortable place to get yourself ready for NYC or decompress on your way back.

Early the next morning (Wednesday), I left for the city.

Back then, I-95 in Connecticut had toll plazas and at the first one, the cops were everywhere because travel had been banned in the whole state. When they found out I had perishable food, they let me go and it was funny because the road was wet and the sun was out.

Compared to the conditions I’d been through to get there, it was a piece of cake. On 125th street, they were happy to get the chickens a day late and because things were so chaotic, there were no loads back to Maine, I headed for the house and had a nice ride home.

My friend Carleton spent several days trapped in his truck in Boston and Harvey, a company driver for Maplewood, spent a couple of days stuck on I-495. I saw him when I went by on Tuesday and all he had to eat for two days were hot dogs delivered by the National Guard.

History is interesting. We live it every day, but rarely realize it. I made better decisions than many in that storm and the load made it safe and sound, albeit a day late. Not bad for driving in “The Storm of the Century.”