Editor’s note: This is part one of a two-part story. Look for part two next Friday.

One of the wintertime memories some folks have is confronting a dangerous situation during a Minnesota blizzard.

My particular memory is based on the time before moving to Albert Lea when I was a teacher at Madelia High School.

One winter afternoon I took four students to Nicollet High School for a debate tournament. (I was the coach.) Our route on dry pavement was about 22 miles north to New Ulm and 14 miles east to Nicollet.

We had to return to Madelia on the same route. By the time we stopped in New Ulm for a late afternoon snack, it was snowing. And right here I made the first of several errors.

We should have continued on to Madelia. However, the students wanted to stop at what was supposed to be the local hangout for the New Ulm kids to eat their snacks.

Somehow, I convinced the students that the New Ulm kids were going right to their homes after school because of the prediction of an approaching blizzard.

After a quick snack, our journey back to Madelia resumed.

We managed to arrive back at Madelia High School about 6 p.m. Two of the students lived nearby. One of the students lived on a farm two miles out of town. He decided to stay with a relative in town. By the way, I was just a half block away from my own home right at this time.

The fourth student was a girl who was really overbearing. She insisted I had to take her home, seven miles away. There was going to be a party and her boyfriend was going to be her special guest. I might add here the fact that she also had relatives living near the school. And here’s where I made another error.

I managed to drive down the lane leading to her family home, get turned around, and back on a county road going north to Madelia. About four miles south of Madelia I blundered into a snowdrift beside the road and became firmly stuck. Despite the poor visibility, blowing snow, and nighttime conditions, I could barely see a grove of trees. This usually indicated the site for a farmstead. I left the car and started to walk toward the grove. A few minutes later a car came from the north. The driver stopped and offered to give me a ride. He was going in the wrong direction, however I made what was a wise decision to accept his offer.

This good samaritan was a veterinarian from Madelia who was in a hurry to go to a farmer further south to handle the birth of a calf.

The farmer wanted us to stay at his place overnight after the calf delivery was made. Despite the full impact of the blizzard, the doctor decided we should try to get back to Madelia.

About two miles away his car became stuck in a snowdrift in the middle of the road right in front of a farm house. That’s where we spent the night with a friendly family who really enjoyed having unexpected guests.

It was about noon the next day when we finally arrived in Madelia. That afternoon I went with a wrecker driver to pull my car out of the snowdrift.

This is when I found out the grove of trees which was my original destination the night before was the site of an abandoned farm site where none of the buildings were left.

I found out later that the girl’s boyfriend didn’t show up for the midweek party. It was canceled because of the blizzard.

In retrospect, I could have refused to give this obnoxious and overbearing junior girl a ride to her rural home that evening.

After all, my assignment was to take those four students from Madelia to Nicollet and back to Madelia. My obligation, legally, started and ended at the Madelia High School parking lot.

Anyway, this particular encounter with a Minnesota blizzard gave me a topic for this column.

We’ll continue this topic with the adventures of some other folks who survived the worst blizzard in Minnesota’s history.

(Feature writer Ed Shannon’s column appears each Friday.)