Kevin Bears snow day from school turned into a long day of cooking for 200 people.

     BRAINTREE − Snow days were rare when Kevin Bears was a student at Thayer Academy.

"Headmaster Peter Benelli, who lived across the street, always joked that the only way classes would ever be cancelled was if he couldn't get to his office," Bears remembered. "Not true, but close."

So it was unusual that the school canceled classes the day before the Blizzard of '78 struck.  Bears was looking forward to a rare snow day.

He didn't get to sleep in.

His father, ran the kitchen at the Elihu White Nursing Home on Commercial Street, now the Royal Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.  Bears worked in the kitchen during high school, found himself pressed into service when much of the original staff couldn't make it into work.

The Bears didn't live far away from the nursing home, but the walk over was tough.

"The conditions were horrendous," due to the heavy snow and gusting wind, he said.

So was the workload.

"Where usually there would be two shifts of 12-15 workers each to feed 200 residents the three meals, it was just us." Bears said.

A couple of nurses aides were sent to join them in the kitchen and the nursing home went to "emergency meals," he said.

Bears wound up working a 13-hour day, and was so exhausted he went straight to bed when he got home at 9 p.m.