OK, at this point I have to admit I’ve been comparing our recent awful winter weather to the almost incomparable Blizzard of ’78 that occurred this same week 41 years ago.

I remember the events all too well, and it’s one of those developments about which so many people could tell stories.

In the comments section of Townbroadcast, old pal Jon Gambee said, “Anyone who compares this weather to the blizzard of ’78 wasn’t here in ’78. Not even close. Roads were completely closed to anything but emergency vehicles and snowmobiles. We had baseball players living with us (in Kalamazoo) and they went through the neighborhood shoveling driveways and walking to the nearest store to buy supplies. The drifts reached nearly to the edge of our roof.”

Indeed, the Blizzard of ’78  has lore of epic proportions. I often have seen references on Facebook, complete with nasty photos of cars, truck and people in dire straights, just like the cover photo that graces this column.

One of the biggest differences between then and now was that the media wasn’t really all over the approach of the storm like the “Always tracking… always alerting… always hyping…” claims of Storm Team 8.

I recall it was a Wednesday evening at about 11 p.m. and I was home in my apartment in downtown Albion when Albion College basketball coach Mike Turner called in the results of a loss at Hope College. The coach told me he and his team were lucky enough to outrun the storm coming from the west and arrived on campus just before things really got dicey.

I didn’t have the good sense to anticipate what I saw when I got out of bed, showered and prepared to walk just a couple of blocks to work the next morning. When I looked out over the neighborhood, I could not see the street and could only guess where the sidewalks might be. Nonetheless, I boldly walked onto the direction I thought the Albion Eevening Recorder might be.

It was a treacherous journey, and at times the drifted snow came up to near my waist. As I walked, I still couldn’t tell where the street was.

When I arrived at the Recorder, I was the only person in the building. The phones were ringing frantically. One was a call from Editor David Moore, who told me he wouldn’t be able to make it in that day. He lived on Concord Road in an old schoolhouse, telling me he arose at 5 a.m. and shoveled furiously for about an hour before realizing not a single car or truck had passed his house.

The second call was from a woman who worked in the production department, who begged me to start the coffee machine because she was snowed in. It dawned on me that very few would be able to drink it if I made it.

Finally, a few other employees straggled into the Recorder office, reporter Mike LaNoue, one guy who could run the press, another guy who could do photos, a pasteup artist and one office lady. All of them lived in town.

So it was decided we’d do the heroic thing and put that day’s edition together.

LaNoue later that morning was upset that when he went to the “cop shop” to get police beat news and the officers there were not particularly cooperative, saying virtually nothing was happening as a result of the storm. Cops, firefighters and ambulance services were busy just getting people out of snowdrifts and covering weather-related emergencies.

We did manage to put together that day’s edition, however belatedly in the afternoon, missing the customary deadline. Then we were told it would be impossible to distribute the paper that day anywhere outside the city limits.

One of the photos that graced the lobby of the Recorder afterward was of that day’s paper inside one of those street vending machines covered in snow.

The Recorder back then was a six-days-a-week publication, but it did not have a Friday or Saturday paper that week.

I spent that Thursday afternoon braving blizzard conditions to walk to Black’s IGA downtown and then walked with beer in tow to the LaNoues’ place to party down. I slept on their rug overnight.

The next day I returned to my apartment and was thoroughly bored, with only a cable televised Pistons game against Cleveland to entertain me.

Things did return to normal, at least somewhat, on Monday, and routines were renewed. But I don’t think anyone alive back then will ever forget what they did during those five days of cabin fever, in what became known as the Blizzard of ’78.

Besides the lack of being forewarned, I think the snow in that storm was much heavier and pervasive, but this year’s catastrophe featured much colder temperatures. In both cases, we suffered and hunkered down.

“All the memories came flooding back… old Mrs. McAvoy eating that horrible chicken and the terrified child running from the burning wreck.” — Vivian Stanshall, “Rawlinson End.”