January 19, 2022
I know I’ve often waxed damn
near rhapsodically about the “good old days”, when the snow was so deep in the wintertime
that driving down a plowed country road, one couldn’t see any of the passing
scenery because the snowbanks were higher than the car’s windows.
Well, it wasn’t quite that bad
on this past Monday morning, but it was close. By the time the plow went down
the road clearing off the foot and a bit of snow we received during the night
and into the morning, the cold white stuff was piled to a height that came to just
at the bottom of the car windows. Fortunately, Monday was our daughter’s regular
day off, and she hadn’t planned to go anywhere.
Our grandson had hoped to come
by and give us a hand with the snow removal. Unfortunately, his car was snowed
in as badly as ours were. David got the snow blower out of the basement mid-morning
and slowly began to go to work on the sidewalk and our small walkway. He used
the shovel for the porch and the porch steps, as well as a bathroom path in the
back yard because the snow was deeper than a couple of our dogs are tall. A friend
who also has small dogs coined the phrase, “a path to pee-dom”. Kind of cute.
This snow blower is the only
one we’ve ever owned. We bought it several years ago, and while it is electric,
it is not self-propelled. It’s large and can be nearly unwieldly if the snow is
deep and heavy enough. Using the blower is a bit better than having to use a
shovel, but honestly? Neither are easy for my beloved anymore.
The work took a lot out of him,
but I could see he felt good that he was able to do that much. He’d planned to
wait for our grandson to come and dig out the cars—but that didn’t happen. In
the end, since this is house stands on a corner lot, after supper time David
used that snow blower once more to clear the area between the side street and the
front of our daughter’s car. Hers was parked ahead of ours, so once that area
was relatively clean, she was able to drive it out, and park on the plowed side
street. Then she did the same with the car that we use as our own. The snow
work and car moving was done by about seven in the evening.
Then the next morning, the
plow came down early, about six in the morning, and cleared the snow that had
been piled up next to our vehicles. When daughter came home at around one
yesterday afternoon, she parked in her usual spot and then brought my car back
to its place in front of our house (and behind hers). I had been told by both
my daughter and my husband that I was not going out in the snow, because it was
still deep in a lot of places and really, I would likely have ended up on my
ass if I had tried. Since falls are to be avoided at all costs, I gave in to
their wishes.
There are times when I want to
just say, bugger this getting older crap. In my thirties and forties—before my
heart attack—I was quite adept at cleaning off my own car in winter and digging
it out if I had to. In fact, there were times in my past when I actually enjoyed
the exercise. The country house I grew up in, and that David and I lived in with
our children after my mother’s passing, had a driveway that if filmed from
about fifty feet up by a drone would look like a hockey stick laying on its
side. We all loved that driveway because we could pull in, drive to the end, steer
to the right, back up, and then drive forward and park near the back door of
the house with our vehicles facing the road, so that leaving again involved no
backing up whatsoever. The driveway measured about one hundred feet with the
turn around, making it a fairly long one.
And before I was a married
woman, and a driver, I was a teen with a shovel and yes, snow days meant I had
a shoveling assignment. As long as the driveway was clear by about 3:45 in the
afternoon, when Mom came home from work, all was good.
There were a few times when I
shoveled the entire length of that sucker in just a few hours. And a few
blessed times when one of our neighbors (who owned the quarry and would in the
future be my husband’s boss) came down with his loader and cleared that one
hundred feet in about ten minutes.
The good old days indeed.
Every snowfall we’ve received this
winter prior to the one on Monday has melted away in less than a week. I doubt
this lot will be melting anytime soon. But one thing I do know, if I know
anything at all is that you really never can judge how long the snow will last
or what the weather will be, forecasts be damned. And since I don’t need to leave
the house until the first week of February, I guess I’ll just sit back and
watch out my window to see what happens next.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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