Inherited Snow Shoveling
Right here, at the outset, I will admit that I like snow. But there is a point where you have to stop looking at it and get to shoveling. I inherited snow shoveling from my father. I think of it more or less as a good
thing. I believe that I must have
inherited it, because I can’t seem to recall learning it at any particular time
or occasion, but I knew what his expectations were nonetheless.
I lived at my parent’s home from the time when I was
four and we moved into the newly-constructed home, until 1980 when I got
married and moved out. As it turned out,
I took snow shoveling with me.
I can’t and won’t use any watered-down generic terms
like “snow removal” because that sounds like less work than shoveling. At our house we used shovels, and it was
work. We had three shovels to choose
from.
First, there was the curve-bladed scooper shovel that resembled
the plow mounted to the city snow trucks.
It worked well enough if the snow was light and fluffy or not more than
three or four inches had fallen. It was
pretty useless if the snow was heavy or deeper than that.
Second was the old coal shovel. I missed out on shoveling coal into the furnace. I vaguely remember the older home that we
rented on Ashland Street when I was very young.
There was a coal pile in one corner of the basement and a furnace that
looked kind of like an inverted colossal octopus nearby. I was only four years old when we moved to
Murphy Drive, so I missed out on shoveling coal, but the shovel came with us. It had two issues: 1) It had a very short
handle that forced you to work kind of bent over; and, 2) It had a large steel blade
that reminded me of a pelican because it could hold more than I could pick up depending
on how wet the snow was.
The third option was the best. It had a long handle and a steel blade that
was about half as large as the coal shovel.
It worked well for pushing and lifting any type of snow.
My brother and I were taught to shovel a path down the
middle the full length of our concrete single lane driveway. Then you shoveled from that path to the edge
of the driveway in both directions.
I don’t recall any real problems until my brother Mike,
who was thirteen months older than me, hit his mid to late teens. From that point on we really didn’t get
along. I suspect that he and I recall
that differently, because I can’t seem to remember doing anything to cause a rift
in our relationship. It was also about
then that Mike seemed to lose all enthusiasm for shoveling. I remember one particular storm that hit on
the day we were supposed to go back to school from Christmas vacation. About a foot of heavy snow fell, causing
school to be canceled. About halfway
through shoveling the driveway (and then we still had the front sidewalk to do
as well) Mike dropped his shovel and said that he was “going in”. Well, I decided to show him. I left his shovel laying on the snowbank
right where he dropped it and I began to cover it up with snow as I cleared the
rest of the driveway by myself.
I had started on the sidewalk when Mike
reappeared. I don’t know if he was moved
by remorse or not, but I doubted it. As
a youngest child, I’m convinced that older siblings seldom if ever feel any remorse
for what they do to younger siblings. “Where’s
my shovel?” Mike asked. “Right over
there where you dropped it,” was my smug reply pointing at the spot where the
snowbank was two feet taller than the rest.
That earned me a push into the snowbank.
Mike went back in the house. My father emerged a minute later; I noticed
that he hadn’t stopped to put his coat on.
Let’s just skip the entire scene and say that after I dug the shovel out
of the snowbank I finished the rest of the sidewalk by myself. I learned that it is not the role of the youngest
to judge anyone older in the family, which meant of course everyone of them. It
wasn’t necessarily fair, but it was easy to remember.
All in all, though I never really minded shoveling
snow. I even took a bit of satisfaction
in a job done well. The biggest
challenge was that our driveway and the neighbor’s driveway ran side by side
with just about four or five feet between them.
The snowbank on that side got pretty steep during snowy winters. It was worse down between the aprons of the
driveways because in addition to the snow that fell, you also had to deal with what
the snowplow pushed in. I remember on
days when no snow fell still getting sent out to level off the snowbanks near
the road.
Maybe worst of all was the first really nice days of early
spring. My dad would send me out to shovel
snow out into the road where the sun would melt it. That seemed like a lot of make work to
me. The sun would eventually get to the
snowbanks, whether I knocked them down or not.
The depth of my ingrained approach to snow shoveling
was laid totally bare when Michelle and I built our own house and moved in in
1991. I bought some good steel snow
shovels – no flimsy aluminum for me. Our
driveway here is 120 feet long and two lanes wide; a third lane long enough to
park an extra car was added when the oldest boy got his driver’s permit.
I caught myself that first winter going out between
snowfalls and chopping the snowbanks down near the road to improve vision. I shoveled the mailbox out with plenty of
room for the mail deliverer to get close to the mail box. And once spring came around I caught myself tossing
some snow out onto the black top road to melt.
About ten years ago, a few years after all of the kids grew up and moved
out, I broke down and purchased a snowblower.
It does a decent job of getting all the heavy stuff out of the way but
usually it leaves a film on snow behind.
I still get out my trusty shovel and scrape that film off down to the
bare concrete. It keeps Michelle and I
safer when we check the mail, and besides, myself just can’t let myself quit
before the job is completely done. Thanks Dad.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Simon Cheung on Unsplash
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