“Meat! Don’t you have any meat? I need meat!”

An Indiana University football player hollered across the counter at me 45 years ago today.

The poor fellow, and his beefy friends, were looking nervous as they made their way through the dorm cafeteria line and slowly realized the dinner menu was not quite as protein-laden as usual.

That’s because we were under a state-wide “snow emergency” as three days of blizzard conditions (on top of previous snowfall) had closed the Bloomington campus for the first time in the school’s history.

Since I worked in the Read Hall cafeteria a few times a week, it was my duty to break the news to the big bruiser:

“You know the blizzard that closed down campus? It also closed the highways, so the food delivery trucks can’t make it through. So … no meat today. We’ve got lots of hard-boiled eggs, though. Oh, and yogurt – what flavor would you like?”

Back in 1978, yogurt was looked on as girlie food, I guess, which might explain why he slammed his tray down loudly on the counter.

“I. Need. MEAT!”

I managed to keep a straight face, knowing I’d laugh about this later. It was tempting to say, “Oh, you big baby …” but since the emphasis is on big and the counter between us wasn’t all that wide, I held my tongue.

“Let’s see … we have strawberry, raspberry, and vanilla yogurt. Your limit is two, though – what sounds good?”

My best recollection is he grabbed two eggs and an entire loaf of bread and stomped off to sit with his buddies.

Meanwhile, we student workers in our red-checked jackets shrugged and helped the next batch of dorm dwellers find sustenance.

Student workers. No adults had made it in that day, so we didn’t have the hair-netted ladies guiding us. We were on our own.

It was wild.

I wish I could remember more specifics about that day. I definitely remember the Snickerdoodles, though. Once we realized we had all the ingredients for a massive batch of cookies, we got to work.

This is similar to the monster mixer we used:

After the cookies were baked (100 dozen, if memory serves), we took a break.

Of course, that meant grabbing our guitars and blowing off some steam.

Luckily, I wrote this guy’s name on the back of the Polaroid.

Mike Pitts:

Meanwhile, President Jimmy Carter declared that Indiana was in a “State of Emergency.” Indiana Bell Telephone Company shut down all non-emergency phone traffic.

It wasn’t just the thick, driving, horizontal snow. It was the unceasing wind, with gusts up to 100 miles per hour. Sadly, 11 lives were lost statewide due to the blizzard and sub-zero temperatures.

The local PBS station was housed on campus (I worked there my senior year, two years later). Although WTIU-TV wasn’t yet set up for live news broadcasts, staff members cobbled together a special report:

Classes were called off that Thursday and Friday, with the howling storm finally calming over the weekend.

We were back at work in the cafeteria when the first food-delivery truck finally made it through. We all cheered until someone asked about the contents.

Meat?

“No … ice cream!”

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