Ernest and Anne Bellaire were on their way back from Pawtucket, headed for their home in Providence, when last Thursday’s storm caught up with them. The storm gave them the chance to become really familiar with a small stretch of Chalkstone Avenue. For three hours, they sat in their car as the snow and the totally inept response to it made it impossible to move.

The storm also gave the Bellaires a perfect seat from which to see the good side of a bad day in Rhode Island.

Anne Bellaire admits that if she were out walking and saw a half dozen teenage boys coming toward her, she might be leery.

“There’s so much fear,” she said. “But these boys were wonderful.”

As the Bellaires watched, the boys stood at the side of Chalkstone Avenue, and as drivers got stuck trying to make it up a difficult incline, they ran out and pushed the cars until they were able to move ahead.

“They got one clear, then waited for the next one,” said Bellaire. “We thought it should be mentioned.”

It certainly should be mentioned. There’s just too much down and disgusted stuff coming out of that storm. The state and local response plan appeared to have been drawn up on a bar napkin during a 3-for-1 night.

So we need those boys on Chalkstone Avenue to show us that the best in people still comes out at the worst of times.

And we need the people at the Rhode Island Blood Center on Promenade Street, in Providence, where I have bled occasionally and enjoyed the Oreos and apple juice. On Thursday, the center became the place for a bunch of kids to come in from the storm.

“They were cold and they needed to go to the bathroom, so we took them in,” said Kathy Connolly, the center’s public relations director, who was herself stuck in traffic during the storm.

The grade school kids were on the way home from their charter school in Pawtucket when the snow stopped their bus.

“We got them warm, that was the big thing,” said Connolly.

The staff made hot chocolate. Then one of the kids asked if it would be OK to sit in one of the donor chairs, those recliners that can be pretty darned comfortable even with a needle in your arm. So the kids sat in the donor chairs and watched some TV.

They were sent on their way with cookies and apple juice.

The impassable streets made for some tense times on school buses as children went for hours and hours without food, without bathrooms and in some cases without vital medication. One driver, Tina Perry, told of sending her bus monitor out for potato chips for the special-needs students who ended up spending 10 hours on her bus. She told of the kindness of the people at Coca-Cola on Pleasant Valley Parkway who allowed the students in to use the bathrooms after they were turned away at a nearby coffee shop. Providence police took the last students off the bus at 10 p.m.

“These children were fantastic during all of this,” she said. “Myself and my monitor were able to keep them pretty much occupied with singing, joking, talking and listening to the radio.

“I am very proud of the behavior of these children in such a rotten situation. Someone needs to recognize all the children and how well their behavior was during all of this.”

So the kids were all right. That was perhaps the best story of the storm. And some of them will surely get the chance to enjoy all the snow while some grownups get goofy trying to explain how they appeared to be expecting highs in the 70s with light ocean breezes IN THE MIDDLE OF DECEMBER.

bkerr@projo.com