Winter, Snow, Shovels, and Civilization

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It’s -6° fahrenheit outside (-21° celsius) my window. Regardless of the unit of measurement, it’s cold. Very cold! One of the things low temperatures bring besides higher fuel bills is snow, frozen water, the white flakes that fall out of the sky. Children love snow. Even young animals love it. There’s nothing more adorable than seeing a puppy playing in fresh powder,

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or curious kittens shaking it from their paws with that “what the hell is this cold stuff on my feet” look on their face. Older dogs though, will avoid snow at all costs, preferring the warmth of a fire to ice balls hanging from their fur. Mature cats too, will take one look outside and turn around, preferring the litter box to winter conditions.

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Yes, snow is for the young, and the young at heart. They sled on it, gather it up into balls and throw it at each other, they affix skis and boards to their feet and with the aid of gravity, slide down mountains on it. Me? I shovel it. About a thousand square feet of it every time it falls out of the sky onto my property. That’s driveway, sidewalks, and walkways. Snow varies in weight. Wet snow, the kind we get in late fall or early spring, is heavy. Extreme cold like we are having now in February, brings a very light, powdery snow, the kind skiers love. I “love” it too, but for an entirely different reason; it’s much easier to shovel. Twelve inches of snow translates for me into 1000 cubic feet of snow to move. That’s 37 cubic yards. The reader who has the good fortune to live in warmer climes will ask “where do you put all that snow?” Answer, you pile it along the edges of driveways and walkways again and again until you feel as if you’re navigating through the trenches of WWI.

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But there is something communal about snow removal. Adversity, a common “foe”, even a meteorological one, brings people together. It’s a sociological phenomenon. A big storm hits and homeowners normally cloistered away in their domiciles, either sitting in front of a TV or a computer screen, are all of a sudden bundled up in warm clothing, hanging out in each others driveways, talking to each other for perhaps the first time in months, their frozen breath hanging in the air. Just take my neighborhood as a typical slice of humanity. There is an older woman who recently had surgery. Her neighbor is a Police officer. I’ve noticed that when he’s done with his driveway he does hers too. Down the street there’s a gentleman who needs hip surgery. His wife has MS. Their neighbors, late at night, with an icy wind blowing, did their driveway for them while they slept. Then there’s the guy who drives a little four-wheeler with a small plow affixed to the front. He keeps the snow away from the mailbox cluster so his neighbors can get their mail. Nobody asked him. He doesn’t get paid. It’s not his responsibility, it’s effort put forth for the common good. Witnessing selflessness and community spirit in the dead of winter warms the heart. A cynic would see all of this from a pragmatic perspective; as simply the cooperation of human beings in the elimination of a common impediment to their freedom of movement. I see it as more than that. We are social animals. Technology has enabled us to become increasingly independent of one another, yet there’s an atavistic desire in all of us to fight for survival alongside others of our kind. I've witnessed a subliminal primeval urge among people experiencing winter storms in Montana and during flooding and earthquakes in California, an urge that brings people together not only out of necessity, but because it meets a need inside of them. An innate desire for cooperation and community resides in all of us.