I don’t actually mind shoveling snow.
Maybe I’m just playing tricks on my own mind, but I view it as a challenge to accomplish and a means of decent exercise. Usually I throw on some headphones under my hat and listen to music, often occupying my brain with a first-time listen through an album I’ve been meaning to check out, while my soon-to-be-sore body handles the menial labor.
But let’s be clear. Blizzard Jonas could not be easily obscured by mere music or muscle.
I didn’t bother with headphones on Sunday morning as I ventured outside with my roommates, joining the growing number of neighbors armed with shovels.
Thankfully, some anonymous hero had blasted through the entire side of our block with a snowblower at 10:30pm the previous evening, spurring clandestine glances through blinds. I felt like a soldier pinned behind enemy lines, hearing the unmistakable distant rumble of machinery, growing ever closer, cheering as the growling tank appeared, flying the colors of our allies.
Maybe my imagination was amplified from a bit of cabin fever.
Anyway, at least our shared sidewalks were clear. So we set to work on cars, visible only as white lumps with antennae. And the comradery of survival and shared work, initiated by the anonymous angel of 1st armored snowblower corps, continued one shovelful at a time.
My roommates, neighbors, and I freed a car at a time, each captive vehicle driven temporarily to the nearby Wyomissing High School lot to clear space for the next plowed-in prisoner. As we worked, children ran in and out of view behind the growing mounds, playing, digging, building, occasionally arguing. “There’s ten feet of snow and you two are fighting over one snowball?!” echoed the voice of one bemused father from down the block.
All of this activity reminded me of my own childhood during the blizzard of 1996, tunneling forts in the enormous piles of snow in my city home’s backyard as my parents and neighbors worked to clear our shared alleyway. The piles buried my fence and unearthed countless adventures over the many snow days ahead. I recall exhaustion and complaints on the faces of the adults, yet never fully quieting the collective determination by acquaintances to clear that unplowed thruway to many of South 17th Street’s backyard parking spaces.
Pre-blizzard 2016, I had spoken to only a few of my neighbors. After this weekend’s work, I’ve met more people in a couple hours than I had in the previous six months of living on this block, including my somewhat mysterious next door neighbor. I was even introduced to the Night Snowblower, feeling almost starstruck as I shook hands with greatness.
Many of us worked long after our own vehicles and parking spots were cleared. We shared stories and shovels and drinks, utilizing snowbanks as nature’s coolers. (Save the hot cocoa for the fireplace: when I’m shovel-sweating, I’m not looking for something warm to tempt me to retreat to the waiting heat and dry clothes indoors).
No mid-winter musical discoveries for me this past weekend, no headphones drowning out the scrape of shovels. Just a bunch of near-strangers accomplishing a common goal and acquiring sore muscles.
Feels pretty good, actually.
(This article originally appeared in my school’s student publication, The BCS Logic)
