This is not time to miss mountain living
Where were you during the Big Snow of 2003? Up to your you-know-what in the horrible white stuff piled up in the driveway? Freezing your toes off trying to clean the gobs of winter goo off your front porch and steps? Trapped in a drift along the roadside?
You know I moved off the mountain just about two years ago to get away from this kind of weather. For two decades I struggled, shoveled, sweated and strained, shoveled, shoveled, shoveled, shoveled…well, you get the picture… some of winter’s worst. In the now infamous winter of ’92-’93 some 13 feet of snow blasted down upon us, all of which I moved, one large spadeful at a time, from our 150-foot-long driveway. That year the snow didn’t fall in inches but in feet.
Yes, my current driveway is considerably shorter. Maybe 25 or 30 feet, I haven’t really measured it yet. And I have some concrete sidewalk as well. But the chore is just the same. Awful.
On Sunday afternoon I moved most of the snow out of the drive and cleaned off my car. Our garage, even after two sales and a lot of stuff donated to charities, still prohibits parking more than one vehicle in it. My car sits out.
It wasn’t too bad earlier in the day. But, as we all are well aware, the weather took a freakish turn as the day progressed.
Could you hear what sounded like sleet or ice hitting you windows hour after hour? I could. Several times our poor house pooch Ladybug attempted to hearken to the call of nature only to stand before the open back door, look out and then immediately turn around and head for the safety and warmth of the living room. She went out only twice and both times it was in desperation and with a lot of urging.
Fortunately, I had visited the grocery store Saturday, buying enough grub – including all the staples like potatoes, butter, bread, eggs, peanut butter, etc. – to get us through any potential entrapment. To make sure we didn’t starve, I made stuffed manicotti on Saturday. My wife baked pork loin, potatoes and added peas on Sunday. And I baked a cake. There’s nothing quite like a snowstorm to bring out the desire to cook, (and eat) is there?
Of course we weren’t alone in our trial. Kennie Sue, our 10-year-old friend spent most of the weekend with us. She’s always a treat to have around, although I couldn’t convince her to grab a shovel and help clean out the driveway. Later Sunday I think she had had enough of us because she accepted an invitation from her grandmother to spend the night with her.
I figured after she left that since the weather was getting worse, I wouldn’t bother trying to get the car out of the driveway but would walk to work. It’s less than a mile and I have plenty of winter apparel for just such a trek.
The phone rang early Monday morning. It was Kennie Sue’s grandmother. It seems the kid, who had been ill last week with a severe cold/bronchitis, was in need of her antibiotic, which she had forgotten at our house.
“What time are you leaving for work?’ my wife asked. “Can you take her medicine?’
Thwarted. No walking to work for me. I had to shovel some to get to the car. The hardest part of the job was cleaning the snow from the car. It was like a white hard case that clung heavily and thickly to every part of the vehicle.
Once inside, I started it, let it warm up and then popped it into reverse and got stuck at the street where city workers had plowed my driveway shut. I rocked it back and forth and finally got free. Traveling to the other side of town wasn’t much of a problem. There was no traffic. I dropped off the pills and headed for the office.
So, once more I fought the weather and won. Despite the savagery of this storm, I was still very grateful that I live here and not in the mountain. Of course if I did still live in the hills east of here, I wouldn’t have made it to work, at least not for a day or two.
But that’s OK. I have had enough winter-forced vacations to last me a lifetime. I don’t need to shovel more snow than I have to. And I’m sure you feel the same,
Have a good day.
E-mail business editor Jim Pletcher: jpletcher@heraldstandard.com.