An Original Rambling: Snow Shoveling Competitor

originally posted on Jan 12, 2001 on my old goofiness.com website:

Last year was my first winter with Bert as my neighbor and I thought of him as a very old guy. An old coot who might have heard an Abe Lincoln speech in person. Bert was already old when I was born.

With this in mind I shoveled Bert's sidewalk after the winter's first real snowfall. At 89, he was surely too old and decrepit to venture out into a Montana winter to shovel snow. It felt good to be such a thoughtful and helpful person to an old geezer.

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The next time it snowed it was about a week later. I had worked late the night before as I sometimes do. I didn't roll out of bed at 6am when my alarm made it's first attempt to wake me. It was closer to noon. I noticed that it had snowed, so I pulled on my boots, wrapped myself in a scarf and tattered ski jacket, grabbed my snow shovel and trudged out through my yard only to find my sidewalk already free of snow.

Who would do this, I wondered. I began to imagine it was a rich and radiant vamp who burned stacks of twenties for heat. She longed to exploit the warmth and caring for which 29 year old men are well-known. She so badly wanted to meet me that she decided to shovel my walkway hoping I'd see her and invite her in for some hot chocolate to show my appreciation. I blew it by oversleeping.

By the next morning it had snowed again, and I was out of my house by 7am less in an effort to clear the sidewalk than to make the acquaintance of my lovely neighborhood temptress. I shoveled slowly, glancing up and down my street, straining my ears for the sound of high heels on snow. I counted to 1000 Mississippi by 20s, then by 10s and finally by ones. I was at 976 when my seductress turned out to be Bert. He slowly emerged from his garage with a shovel and set to work carefully clearing his walk in the same manner that he manicured his lawn in the summer. The same manner in which my sidewalk had been cleared the previous morning.

Bert had apparently taken my clearing of his walk not as pity on an old man too frail to venture out into an unruly Montana winter, but as a favor that he should be returning. Really old men think that way. I was mortified to think that my neighbors saw this 89 year old man shoveling my sidewalk the morning before.

By the fourth snow fall of the year, I was prepared. I'd been watching the Weather Channel for two straight weeks. Any time someone reported even a slight chance of snow from the Klondike to Denver, I set my alarm to concert volume and laid out my shoveling clothes in order of what needs to go on first. I even bought a spare shovel just in case.

When morning arrived, I was out earlier than anyone, the sounds of my shovel scraping concrete echoed throughout my dark and lifeless neighborhood. I started with Bert's walkway, cleared his driveway and swept his steps. I didn't do my property first because I thought Bert might hear me and rush out to complete his before I had a chance.

When I finally completed the quick and shoddy shoveling of my own property, I waited. I waited because I wanted to see the look on Bert's face when he saw that I had completely cleared every square inch of his sidewalk, his driveway, his porch steps, and his front lawn.

Then it began to snow again. I hoped Bert would soon emerge. It was a heavy snow. After 20 minutes I cared little if Bert was impressed with my thoroughness, I began to hope that he'd notice I shoveled at all. I pictured him waking after an hour of snowfall and peering out his window to see a fresh blanket covering our properties and thinking about what a lazy young neighbor he had. Then he'd get out his shovel and be clearing my walkway as all the other neighbors left for work, mumbling into their frosted windshields about how lazy I am.

After 40 minutes I got my shovel out again and cleared the fresh inch of snow that had accumulated. Then I waited some more. The snow plow driver looped through the neighborhood. Perplexed neighbors waved as they drove off to work. The clock at the University struck 9, then 10, then soon 11. Finally, at noon, I had to go in. I tried phoning the hospital to inquire about frostbite remedies, but my fingers wouldn't cooperate.

I didn't see Bert for the rest of the winter. Each morning it snowed I raced to shovel both sidewalks, both driveways and both porch steps. I cancelled my winter vacation plans to Vale and remained at home nodding off each evening while listening to the crackle of my brand new weather radio. I suspected that Bert had hustled me, but I wasn't going to be caught off guard.

I survived that winter but my body didn't relinquish the posture of a man shoveling snow until June. In August another old coot moved into the house on my right. He's 81 and he owns a snowblower.