flora margaret

Photos (while walking to work on a snowy morning):
1. Snowy sidewalk through branch tunnel on Madison
2. Snowy shoes near lumberyard on Madison
3. Kelsey Museum of Archeology
4. Power Center Doors and ugly Dental School

This week my son and my teacher husband had a snow day. This always makes me happy. I have always loved going upstairs to tell my kids they have the day off and hearing their sleepy, joyful comments, usually, “yes!” and seeing their happy, satisfied, close-eyed faces as they snuggle deeper into their warm beds.

I never get a snow day. My employer never closes; I am within walking distance of work; and my husband is a teacher, so we always have childcare. But I don’t mind. I’m a morning gal. I like being outside in the winter and the wondrous beauty that is brought by a big snowfall. I love the neighborly camaraderie that a big snow brings.

Yesterday while shoveling my driveway, I noticed my new neighbors were stuck at the end of my driveway, blocking my car. I helped push their car and made a few suggestions, which the husband did not want to listen to: back the car downhill 60 feet to the next street, and turn to go downhill and out to a main street which would be clear. He thought it would be better to keep pushing the car uphill.

He also gave me a short lesson on how to push a car so that it rocked “like a pendulum, you don’t have to push the whole time, just during the forward motion.” Grr. I know how to rock a car. I eventually went back to my own shoveling, but could hear him lecturing to his wife. So tiresome.

Also, he could hear my pug Finny inside our fence screaming and he asked, “What is that?! Is that your dog?!” I told him I didn’t hear anything and I didn’t know what he was talking about. Then I laughed and said, “Haha. Just kidding. Yes, that’s my dog, he doesn’t bark he screams.” He did not find me at all amusing. He did not make a good first impression. Maybe I didn’t either.

Then my retired neighbors who had been out snow blowing and shoveling came from all directions and descended on the stuck car. I said to annoying new neighbor, “Here comes the A-team to help!” and my dear neighbor Bill said dryly, in his charming Tennessee twang, “The B-team. We’re too old to be the A-team.”

They were all giving suggestions, all at the same time. Mari explaining to the wife through the driver’s window, Bill and Bob telling the husband. All of it same advice that I had just given, “back the car downhill…”

I pointed as Doug from up the street smoothly cruised on by down the hill, through the snow, to make his way to the main road. “See! If our 90 year old neighbor can do it, so can you!”

My annoying new neighbor said, “I think we’ll just push it into the driveway.”

He seemed defeated and overwhelmed by all this help. He is so young. Maybe he is not annoying. Maybe I recognize control issues. Maybe it takes one to know one.

With that adventure over, Mari turned to shoveling my sidewalk with me. Margaret came out in her leopard print slippers, pink pajamas and down coat and asked if she could help. Slippers. Does it make more sense if I tell you that she is a mathematician? Dr. Margaret. She is so serious, and so kind. I wanted to hug her. I declined her offer, as I had decided to abandon the car and walk to work and I was afraid she would shovel in her slippers.

Bill, who had already been snow blowing for hours, came back down to my corner lot, double the sidewalk, and cleaned the rest of my walk.

Before my neighbor Joe died, Bill was always down first thing after a snow to make sure Joe’s driveway and sidewalk were clean. Even after Joe stopped driving. Snow is an opportunity for the good people of your neighborhood to quietly reveal themselves.

As Bill finished, I gave him a hug and headed off to work thinking these are not the B team neighbors, they are the A plus team.