So we dug our way out of the blizzard last week while shuddering about whether there was going to be another one coming along soon. I think anyone who lived through the Blizzard of 1978 gets worried when snow is forecast, even if it’s going to be an inch or so. My wife’s uncle reminded us last week that his mother, my wife’s grandmother, who lived in Codman Square, got a certificate reading, “I lived through the Blizzard of 1978.”
Many of us know the great Boston song, “Charlie on the MTA.”
“Well, did he ever return?
No, he never returned, and his fate is still unlearned (Poor Old Charlie)
He may ride forever ‘neath the streets of Boston
And he’s the man who never returned.”
“Poor Old Charlie’s experience kind of happened to me on Mon., Feb. 6, 1978, the first day of the blizzard. I was in my Dorchester apartment and had heard that there was a big snowfall set for the whole day. I thought about the big proposal for funding due for the Somerville United Neighborhoods community group that I directed back then and about how the draft proposal was on the desk in my office. I said to myself, ‘I can spend the day working on that proposal when nothing else will get done. And do battle with the pesky white-out sheets for correcting typos.
So, I left my apartment on Stockton Street in Codman Square, walked down to Ashmont Station and got on the subway headed downtown. I changed to the Orange Line at Washington Street/Downtown Crossing. I planned to get off at Sullivan Station and take a bus to my office on Broadway in Somerville. But the doors didn’t open at Sullivan; the train just kept going. I was stuck on that train!
“Charlie handed in his dime at the Kendall Square station
And he changed for Jamaica Plain
When he got there, the conductor told him, “One more nickel”
Charlie couldn’t get off that train!”
It proceeded to the next station, Wellington in Medford, where the announcement said that the train wasn’t going any farther and everyone had to get off the train. We all trooped upstairs to the station lobby where we were told that we might get taken back to Boston at some point.
We waited a while (was it two hours sitting on that floor?). They finally loaded us on a bus that slowly made its way to Haymarket Station where, underground, we boarded a Green Line trolley that only went a little way before breaking down. We then were told to get out and walk along the tracks in the MBTA tunnel to Government Center Station.
“Now, all night long Charlie rides through the station
Crying, “What will become of me?
How can I afford to see my sister in Chelsea
Or my cousin in Roxbury?”
When we got to Government Center, they said “no more train service.” So I had to walk home from downtown Boston to Codman Square. I kid you not. I got to my apartment on Stockton Street about 5:30 p.m. I’d spent the whole day riding the trains, waiting, and walking a very long way home. I was cold and very wet. I never got to my office to finish that proposal that was due. Yes, on that day I was “Poor Old Charlie” on the MTA.
Lew Finfer is a Dorchester resident.
