[stylist] Snow Shovelin' Blues - prompt response

[Barbara Hammel]

I enjoyed this piece immensely.  We have a snow blower but I do enjoy doing 
a bit of shoveling--except that end of the driveway bit.
One year the snow plow guy actually came back and did my driveway after he 
dumped his load there.  I don't know why he did.  I scowled at him profusely 
for having done it and that was in the day when my husband worked and his 
job took him out of town a good chunk of the time.

I've tried your snow plow method before and I've also tried using the shovel 
like a broom and sweeping the snow.  Sometimes at the end of the driveway, 
I've completely foregone the shovel and used my hands to lift those huge 
chunks.
Barbara




Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Kuell
Sent: Friday, February 03, 2012 9:16 AM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Snow Shovelin' Blues - prompt response


Snow Shovelin' Blues



".So be careful, folks-it's a mess out there."



I shut off the clock radio and threw on some clothes. Great. Last night they 
predicted one to three inches, and this morning we've got eight. After 
pouring a bran muffin and half a pot of hot coffee down my gullet, I found 
my hat and gloves and stepped out into the crisp morning air.



I breathed deep, enjoying the cold burn in my lungs. The world was 
beautifully crystalline white, and now it was time to carve a path through 
it.



My trusty snow shovel was right where I'd left it--behind the Adirondack 
chair I meant to put in the garage last fall. I whistled, Joy to the World 
and cleared the porch and front steps. I was building up some heat, so I 
unzipped my jacket about six inches and worked on the path to the driveway. 
The air temperature must have been above freezing, because the snow was 
dense and heavy. Real heavy. Every few minutes I had to pause, stretch the 
kinks out of my back and take some deep breaths. Shoveling is hard work, but 
I really enjoy the cardiovascular  exercise. Feels good to use the old 
muscles.



Fifteen minutes later, I'd cleared about a dozen feet and had maybe twenty 
more to go. My muscles were starting to complain a little, saying they 
preferred to just rest on a wrist pad and exercise by striking the keyboard. 
But, I kept going. Finding the right angle, push forward a foot and a half, 
then heave the shovelful over to the side of the driveway. Release was 
critical, as you didn't want to fall short and toss the load back onto the 
driveway, or waste energy by tossing the twenty-five pounds of frozen fun 
into your neighbor's front yard. After five more feet, my heart was beating 
faster than a bunch of ex-girlfriends at Tiger Wood's back door. Time for a 
new strategy.



I tried the snow plow method, holding the handle of the shovel with both 
hands out in front of me and running like I was the snowplow. It worked 
great for about three feet, then the shovel stopped but my body kept going. 
The handle of the shovel jammed into my crotch, I sang soprano for a few 
seconds and had to take a five minute break.



Blade down, push, lift and throw. Blade down, push, lift and throw. I wonder 
who invented the snow shovel? Ingenuitive as it is, it had to be a New 
Englander. Probably some poor sap who had a boss who didn't want to get her 
pretty boots wet. Maybe he tried various techniques before coming up with a 
spade, which could be redesigned for the job. But, why twenty inches wide? 
All snow shovels are twenty inches-not sixteen or eighteen or twenty-one. 
But twenty on the nose. And the handle at the top, that little addition was 
pure genius. Blade down, push, lift and throw.



I kept listening for the road is it slowly approached. Ten more feet. Eight 
feet. Five feet. I was stopping to breathe and ram my fists into my lower 
back to ease the discomfort about every two minutes now. I wonder how much 
snow blowers cost? Probably a mint at this time of year. Blade down, push, 
lift, groan  and throw.



The end of the driveway was as bad as I'd feared. Instead of eight inches of 
heavy, wet snow, I faced a mountain of maybe twenty-four inches of 
hard-packed misery. I stretched my back again, voiced a few silent curses at 
the snow plow for leaving me this undesired chunk of winter, and went to 
work. I chopped and hacked and beat and shoved and cried my way through that 
unforgiving glacier as my tight hamstrings, shoulders  and lower back 
threatened to stop functioning if I didn't cease and desist this activity 
ASAP. But, finally I finished. The corners could have been done better, but 
after an hour and a half of shoveling I couldn't move one more spoonful.  As 
I dragged my tired body towards the walkway, Molly-the-Mail-carrier stomped 
her way across my neighbor's yard toward me.

"Morning," she said, voice crisp from the cold. "You feeling okay? You're 
bent over like my grandmother when she's carrying a bag of cement."



"I'm fine," I told her. "Back's a little sore from this damn snow."



"Ever consider massage therapy ?" she said. "Lugging this heavy sack of 
catalogues through this stuff isn't any picnic, either. My guy Hans is a 
God-send. He'll get your muscles singing a happier tune in no time."



The thought of a guy named Hans rubbing my muscles didn't exactly light my 
fire. "He wouldn't have a sister named Gretel in the business, would he?"



An ugly, metallic groan cut the morning stillness about a block away. We 
both turned at the dreadful sound. Big and heavy, a powerful diesel engine 
roared like a T Rex through the quiet of the neighborhood. It pushed 
half-a-ton of cold, steel blade as it plowed through Mother Nature's mess.



"No!" I shouted, waving my arms frantically. "No! Please! No-o-o!"



- chriskuell


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