Blizzard brings out reasons to give thanks

Ah, Thanksgiving break—a time to return to the warmth of your own bed, the bosom of your own family, and the quirks of your hometown. That is, if you are lucky enough to make it home. Fortunately, despite a four-hour delay, I was. And, as it turned out, it was not a moment too soon. The day after I arrived in the Buffalo airport, my mother and I went out to do some shopping. It had started snowing on our way over, and around 1 p.m., my mother cast a concerned glance at the parking lot. "It'll stop," I said, not wanting to leave.

An hour and 15 minutes later, not only had it not stopped snowing, but it had gotten significantly worse. The usual 10 minute drive to my brothers' school became a 20 minute ordeal in the blinding snow. "I think we might have to stay at the school for a while," said my mother. "I don't want to drive home in this." But when we got my brothers, we decided to chance it and drive. We assumed the 40-minute trip to our house might end up taking an hour and a half, but we really wanted to be home when the worst of the storm hit. We left the boys' school at about a quarter to three.

By 5 p.m., we were much closer to home, but traffic had virtually stopped. There was almost zero visibility, and nobody was moving. Still, we thought we'd be there for maybe another hour, tops. My younger brothers, who are 16 and nine years of age, cannot tolerate sitting next to each other in the car. "Quit it, Harry. Cut it out. Get the fuck off of me!" bellowed Devin, the 16-year-old, from the back. "You see?" said my mother to me, "Nothing's changed around here." An hour later, we were on Main Street, no more than a 15-minute walk from my house. But no one was moving, and we sat through 11 light changes without gaining an inch. Meanwhile, the squabbling continued from the backseat, raising and lowering in tone and pitch with each passing hour. My mother was alternately trying to reach my father on our brand-new, temperamental cell phone and twisting around in her seat to holler at the boys. One lane over, a family got out of its car, trudged over to a Chinese place, ordered dinner to go, and made it back to their car in time to keep up with the flow of traffic.

At around 6:30 p.m., when there was still hope of getting home (any minute now!) my mother turned up the radio really loud and sang "Flashdance" at the top of her lungs, which made her feel a little better and mortified my brothers. Finally, spurred on by my nine-year-old brother's squirming and whining and her own mounting frustration, my mother attempted to maneuver the car to the shoulder of the road, where we could park it safely and get home. But she only succeeded in getting our tires stuck in the snow, a predicament that aroused more wrath than sympathy among her fellow drivers.

Suddenly, a group of strange men bearing snow shovels materialized in the night air and began barking directions as they shoved at our car from the back. "Cut the wheel to the left—cut it NOW!" commanded the leader. My mother, embarrassed at blocking traffic (albeit, immobile traffic), readily complied. "Get out and help those men push the car!" she hissed to Devin. Not to be outdone, Harry hopped out, and I, not wishing to contribute to the stereotyping of my gender, jumped out as well. "You can stay inside, Shorty!" boomed the leader of this improvised rescue squad to Harry. Harry ignored him and, digging his little heels into the snow, attempted valiantly to move our station wagon. I gave a couple of half-hearted shoves, but backed off when another man joined the team and I was motioned to the sidelines. Thanks to the efforts of this heroic troop, and my mother's navigational skills, we soon found ourselves unstuck—and exactly where we were before.

By 9 p.m., we had all had enough. My mother had finally reached my father, who made the trek from our house to Main Street to meet us. He took the wheel, and my mother took my brothers and me home. We didn't see my father again until two in the morning. We were the lucky ones. As trying as our ordeal seemed at the time, we heard horror stories of people trapped in their cars for 19 hours on the roads, with nary a Chinese place in sight. As bad as our ordeal was, at least we were close to home.

The moral of the story is that, while the storm may have brought out the worst in my brothers (the best cure for homesickness is a good, concentrated dose of your family in a car that's not moving for six hours straight) it brought out the best in the community. People took in strangers for the night and gave them hot meals and a place to sleep. Others brewed coffee in their homes and took out mugs to the people stuck in cars on their streets. Busloads of school children who didn't make it home in time were entertained, fed, and put to bed in local fire stations. My brothers fought just like always, my father bailed us out, and my mother got us back safely. And I really felt like I was home at last.

Raina Lipsitz is a freshman in Trumbull.

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