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It snowed a bit over a half foot in Cincinnati overnight and this morning.† It has stopped for now; but more snow, along with some sleet or other wintry mix, is expected tonight and tomorrow morning.† The city is essentially shut down with schools, universities and businesses closed for the day.† I am babysitting the warehouse waiting for my landlord’s delivery of chicken and beef while he makes deliveries to his customers.

The neighborhood is quiet today, the warehouse silent but for the roar of the florescent lights.† I can’t help thinking of the first big snow of my working career.† That day was not so quiet.† (Readers uninterested in “walked five miles in the snow each day, both ways uphill” may exit the page now.† You’ve been warned.)

Today also happens to be the 31st anniversary of the Blizzard of 1978.† I was in college and also working for one of the Big 8 accounting firms.† School was out of session for the between-semester break.

The night the blizzard arrived, I had a late racquetball game on the north side of town.† It was raining steadily with temperatures in the low 40s when I arrived at the club.† When I left, the temperature had dropped to just above freezing and it was still raining.† As I drove home on I-75, the rain turned to freezing rain, then sleet and finally snow.† The temperature dropped 10 or so degrees over just a few minutes.† The stuff on the road began to freeze and the winds howled from the west.† One strong gust blew my car across two lanes of the highway.

The radio station to which I had tuned suspended its normal programming to focus on the weather.† I recall the shock in the voice of the newsman who took over for the DJ as he reported unheard of drops in the temperature and barometric pressure.† It was clear we were in for something big.† These were the days before doppler weather radar, sophisticated weather satellites and extensive computer generated weather models.† We simply didn’t get the four or five days of ominous warnings from the television weather geeks to which we have become so accustomed.† By the time I reached Newport, the rain and mixed precipitation had frozen solid and the snow was accumulating atop the ice.† The hill past St. Luke Hospital was littered with cars and trucks stuck at crazy angles to the road.† I managed to zig and zag my way around them without slowing and made it to the top of the hill.† I may have been the last car to navigate that hill; as I reached the top, police cruisers with flashing lights were blocking access to the hill.

When I awoke a few hours later, my father quizzed me on the road conditions.† I reported that they were bad, but not, in my opinion, dangerous or impassable. He decided that we could (and should) go to our respective offices.† And so, we drove together into downtown without incident.† Traffic was not an issue — we didn’t see a single other vehicle.† We were the crazy ones.† The roads were covered with 10 inches or so of new snow overlaying an inch or more of solid ice.

When I arrived at the accounting firm’s office, the phone system night bell was clanging.† For those too young to remember, 1978 straddled some important technology shifts.† We used 10-key adding machines; pocket calculators existed, but were prohibitively expensive.† Electronic word processing was in its infancy; reports were produced using MAG card typewriters.† We had a print shop in the office where reports were printed on an offset press.† We prepared tax returns by filling out large data input sheets that we sent for computer processing to a service in Texas (I believe). And only the most technologically advanced companies had direct inward dial phone systems.† Our firm had a modern (by the standards of the day) switchboard operated by the receptionist.† When the office was closed, she activated a “night line.”† The night line could handle one incoming call at a time; you couldn’t place the call on hold; and even a transferred call blocked the line until the call terminated.† The system could, however, queue calls for that single line.† Oh, and the night bell sounded like the klaxon on a naval vessel.

It took me a minute or two to determine I was the only person in the office.† I answered three calls in succession off the night line, shouting to be heard over the klaxon’s insistent reminder of another call in the queue.† All were from fellow employees calling off.† I knew this wasn’t going to work.† I couldn’t answer calls fast enough using the night line and couldn’t perform my actual work with the night line blaring at me.† I walked to the receptionist’s desk and stared at the console.† I had watched her play her fingers over the keys, buttons and switches; she made it all look so easy.† After all, how hard could it be to operate a switchboard, I thought.

I reached out and flipped the switch marked “Night.”† The klaxon went silent — good.† The console sprang to life, a dozen or more lights indicating incoming calls† — not so good.† I grabbed an operator’s headset, said a little prayer and began pressing buttons.† I disconnected a few callers, but soon got the hang of answering calls.† Most of the initial calls were from staff members either announcing they wouldn’t be in or asking if the office was open.† For the latter, my answering the phone was clue enough; I didn’t sound much like Betty, the receptionist.† I started a legal tablet of the names of those who called off.† One of the callers was the woman who is now my wife, lamenting that she would have carried more work home had she known she would not be able to get out of her driveway.† Some things never change.

The rest of the world was unaware of our weather plight.† Soon I began answering calls involving the real business of the firm.† It was the heart of the audit busy season, and partners and managers from around the world were calling to inquire about, or update the status of, multi-office projects.† I explained our weather situation to people who couldn’t fathom a little snow’s shutting down a city (a partner from Vienna comes immediately to mind) and took messages for the intended recipients to return the calls.† I burned through two pads of pink “While You Were Out” slips.† I was fortunate that I didn’t have to transfer any calls as there was no one else around to take them.† I am sure to this day that task was beyond my ability as an operator.

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Eventually, the phones quieted down, two others (a young partner and the office accountant), out of more than 100 employees, arrived and I got a bit of work done.† Around 2:00 p.m. my father called and suggested that we call it a day.† Because the governors of all three local states had declared the roads closed to all but four wheel drive, public transport and emergency vehicles, we decided to take the bus home.† I packed a large audit bag of work for the evening and (likely) the next day.† We met at the bus terminal, my father also in possession of an enormous briefcase.

We waited only a few moments for a bus of the line that stopped within a block of our home. A bit under half way home, the driver stopped the bus (at 10th and Washington in Newport) and told us to get off the bus.† When we informed him that we were going further, he told us we were at the end of the line for today.† When we said that we would just ride back downtown, he laughed and told us his was the last bus of the day and he was going to the garage (neither closer to home nor downtown).

We were out on the street, each carrying a heavy briefcase in the bitter cold dressed in what is now known as business casual and light winter coats, with nary a hat nor glove between us.† We certainly didn’t want to face a two mile hike through deep snow to a downtown hotel; the walk home was longer and more treacherous.† In those days, there was a little neighborhood grocery/deli on that corner.† The manager agreed to let us use the phone for 50¢ a call (when a pay phone call was a dime).† We gave her $5 against our usage.† The first call was to home to advise of our predicament.† The next calls were to two doctor friends who had recently acquired the latest in physician chic — original Jeeps outfitted with oversize tires, snow plows and winches.† Both were out showing off their new toys to other friends.† We left messages with a family member at each home as well as at the homes of several of the usual suspects they might have been visiting.

I honestly cannot remember how long we waited at that store.† It seemed like hours, but was likely only one or so.† We did have to bribe the manager to stay open a bit longer than she planned.† Eventually, one of the docs showed up and dropped us at our front door.

We decided to stay home the next day, along with all the other sane people.

A storm of the magnitude of the 1978 Blizzard would create nowhere near the chaos — or adventure — today.† This morning, just after 6:00 am, my wife received an email message on her BlackBerry that the company’s office would be closed today (as we were walking out the door, she decided to go in anyway; some things never change).† In addition, the company maintains a dial-in hotline for situations such as this.† Calls to empty offices are automatically routed immediately to voice mail, to be picked up from home or anywhere in the world.† Urgent messages are transmitted by email to BlackBerries and iPhones or by text message.† Who needs a big briefcase when the corporate VPN is but a broadband connection or WiFi hotspot away?† The emergency alteration of the bus schedules would appear prominently on the transit authority’s home page, accessible from office, home or smart phone.† And once stranded, help is but a cell phone call, text message or voice mail message to any of hundreds (or thousands) of stored contacts.

And yet, as much as I would have appreciated a cell phone that afternoon, I wouldn’t trade the experience of that day for one — or anything else for that matter.† Life was simpler, less predictable and infinitely more exciting.