Marooned In “High Country”
BY DON DOUCETTE
The morning the Blizzard of 1978 began started as a normal winter workday as I delivered home heating fuel near the center of North Attleboro.
What seemed a normal start to a winter storm unexpectedly became a concern of personal curiosity as the storm strengthened. I remember being at one home off Arnold Road and the thought came to mind that I had never observed snow accumulate so rapidly. I worked other nearby stops as the snow depth increased.
My last stop that morning was at Gaudett Leather Company on Richards Avenue – pumped my delivery as usual and climbed to the second floor office to leave the delivery receipt.
A number of ladies worked at benches fashioning leather goods – I advised, John, the manager and former classmate that the snow was falling at an alarming rate, “You might consider sending these ladies home early.”
Back downstairs and into the truck with Richards Avenue mired with deep ruts, my firm called on the radio, “Bring it in. We are getting all the trucks off the road, immediately.” That same truck was my guaranteed ride home. And it remained in my drive snowbound the next day and late the second evening, an Army Reserve pay loader opened one narrow lane past my home in Attleboro. The next day with great difficulty, I arrived my firm’s office in Attleboro Falls via Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
The truck with its precious inventory became an approved emergency vehicle allowed on local roads and so began my personal experience in the aftermath of that famous winter blizzard.
The rural High Street area of North Attleboro was snowbound for days – to this day, I refer to that blowing drifts neighborhood as “the high country.”
The center of North Attleboro was cleared at a snail pace as some businesses began to open – snowmobiles from upper High Street towed toboggans downtown and hauled essential supplies to marooned neighbors in the “high country.”
Why do I mention at this time the Blizzard of 1978? My memory piqued?
On Sunday, November 14th, 2021 at 2 PM, the North Attleboro Land Trust Steering Committee will sponsor a hike from the open space Chomey Property off Ellis Road to the historic Angle Tree Stone. Your tour guide will be Jill Miller.
Still early in the cooler season, hikers can experience this beautiful autumn Ten Mile River Watershed landscape within its rural Seven Mile River tributary drainage without being chest deep in blizzard snows which once covered my beautiful North Attleboro “high country.”
Don Doucette
“Ten Mile River Rambles”
Friends of the Ten Mile and Bucklin Brook
Citizens of the Narragansett Basin