Heavy snows in the Midwest result in...random acts of shoveling
Dan Brawner
February 19, 2008
Times are tough, they say, and are about to get tougher. The economy is tanking, we are locked in a never-ending war with the Middle East and global warming threatens to bake lush farmland into something like that crusty school lunch program lasagna we used to get after it sat under the infrared lights for three days. But the thing about human beings is that when conditions are at their worst, we are at our best. I say "we", but I am really referring to those anonymous folks who have been secretly shoveling other people´s sidewalks and driveways after the recent series of heavy snowfalls. I´m not naming any names. You know who you are.
The National Weather Service tells us the Cedar Rapids area has had 54.8 inches of snow this winter, making it the ninth snowiest on record. It´s not enough to brag about. But we can still complain. I´ve got tools that have been encased in ice in the bed of my pickup since November. The trunk of my car is frozen shut. The wind chill has been so bad if you want to take a walk around the block, you have to keep a Search & Rescue team on standby.
This year, on Christmas Day, I was out of town visiting relatives. It had snowed hard and I was worried I might not be able to get back into my driveway. But when I arrived home, the entire path had been scooped out clean as a whistle. Somebody had committed a random act of shoveling.
I´d been hearing about this phenomenon earlier in the season. One night after a bad snowstorm, someone had shoveled off my mom´s sidewalk. She never found out who it was. Another time, a friend in Iowa City said an anonymous person had done their whole block. Who was it, they asked? Nobody knew.
There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. Maybe some guy innocently walked into the True Value one day and fell in love with their super-deluxe, giant snow blower. And when he got it home, his wife said, "We´ve only got 15 feet of sidewalk! What do we need that thing for?"
Yesterday, it was 5 degrees F. with a 30 mph wind. I was trying to clear out the driveway, but drifts were filling in as fast as I could shovel. My hands and feet were going numb from the cold and through the swirling cloud of snow, I thought I saw a distant pack of polar bears coming up for a closer look. Suddenly, I heard a honk behind me. A smiling man in a pickup with a snow blade rolled down his window, mumbled something about this being on his way anyhow and proceeded to scoop out my driveway. I´d never seen him before. And before I could properly thank him, he disappeared into the haze.
Who can explain these little acts of kindness? People are just like that. So what´s a thing like war or climate change to creatures like us? Just another snow storm–if you catch my drift.
The National Weather Service tells us the Cedar Rapids area has had 54.8 inches of snow this winter, making it the ninth snowiest on record. It´s not enough to brag about. But we can still complain. I´ve got tools that have been encased in ice in the bed of my pickup since November. The trunk of my car is frozen shut. The wind chill has been so bad if you want to take a walk around the block, you have to keep a Search & Rescue team on standby.
This year, on Christmas Day, I was out of town visiting relatives. It had snowed hard and I was worried I might not be able to get back into my driveway. But when I arrived home, the entire path had been scooped out clean as a whistle. Somebody had committed a random act of shoveling.
I´d been hearing about this phenomenon earlier in the season. One night after a bad snowstorm, someone had shoveled off my mom´s sidewalk. She never found out who it was. Another time, a friend in Iowa City said an anonymous person had done their whole block. Who was it, they asked? Nobody knew.
There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. Maybe some guy innocently walked into the True Value one day and fell in love with their super-deluxe, giant snow blower. And when he got it home, his wife said, "We´ve only got 15 feet of sidewalk! What do we need that thing for?"
Yesterday, it was 5 degrees F. with a 30 mph wind. I was trying to clear out the driveway, but drifts were filling in as fast as I could shovel. My hands and feet were going numb from the cold and through the swirling cloud of snow, I thought I saw a distant pack of polar bears coming up for a closer look. Suddenly, I heard a honk behind me. A smiling man in a pickup with a snow blade rolled down his window, mumbled something about this being on his way anyhow and proceeded to scoop out my driveway. I´d never seen him before. And before I could properly thank him, he disappeared into the haze.
Who can explain these little acts of kindness? People are just like that. So what´s a thing like war or climate change to creatures like us? Just another snow storm–if you catch my drift.