I Want To Get Off The Bus

Traffic must have been going pretty slowly, and myself and two other passengers due to get off in Natick anxiously sat at the front of the bus, when the driver told us he was getting indications the Natick exit ramp from the Pike was closed.

I asked him if he could let me get off where the Pike went over Edgell Road in Framingham, as my parents lived about a half mile from there, but he said he could only let passengers off at designated stops. He even told the other two, that he couldn't let them off the Natick toll booths. So he told us to decide whether or not we wanted to stay at the east bound lane service area in Natick or go all the way to Boston.

I guess the three of us figured we'd get home in the morning some time and opted to wait out the storm in the Howard Johnson's restaurant at the service area.

I called my parents from a pay phone and they were glad to hear from me as they had expected my call from the Natick bus station for some time. There were no cell phones then. Of course my father couldn't attempt the drive, so I told them I was content to wait until the morning, then I settled into some kind of sleep in one of the restaurant's booths.

In the morning, realization that the situation was going to get worse before it got better set in. From somewhere, one of the employees produced a TV and placed it on the lunch counter, back then big screen TV’s didn't exist in restaurants either, so we became fully informed as to how grave the situation was.

All roads were closed except for emergency vehicles. Over pancakes, I considered trying to walk to my parent’s house, but by then I had enough outdoor winter experience in the army to know I couldn't make it without boots, gloves and a warm hat. My fellow stranded passengers were equally unprepared and the three of us chose to stay at HoJo's, and I called my parents to let them know.

Enough employees made it between home and work, I think on snow mobiles, to keep the restaurant open. Emergency workers began coming and going off the Pike for breaks. The only other person who was stranded there that I remember was a woman who pulled into the parking lot shortly after our bus left and said she wasn't going to try to drive until the roads were plowed. So the restaurant was never crowded and I remember being relatively at home there.

When the morning with a clear blue sky and bright sun arrived with the word that major roads had been cleared though they were still closed to normal traffic, I and the couple from the Peter Pan Bus decided to hike back down the Pike to Framingham.

As we walked all alone on the westbound lane, which still had a packed cover of snow on it, with mountains plowed to the sides, I don't remember it being cold, so we were all right in our soft shoes, hatless and toting our small pieces of luggage with bare hands.

I think they kept going after I left them at the Edgell Rd overpass, where I was grateful to see that that road was plowed too. Brook street was plowed, but not my parent’s street, so I finally had to wade through the snow to my parents house.

-Fred Joyce