Fond Memories

As the 7 day forecast remains above 90 degrees and the National Weather Service has declared this is the warmest 6 month period in recorded weather history I've decided to revisit the blizzards of 2009/2010.  Enjoy, and think "cool" thoughts.

The best laid plans… yeah, blah, blah, blah.  Just when you think you’re on top of the world, the world ends up on top of you, or at least trying to swallow you up.  But I digress.

On the eve of “Snowmeggedon” Friday night, and knowing that ultimately I have to get out to dialysis on Monday morning, when I get home from work I decide to park in the front yard immediately adjacent to the road.  Close to the road, close to the front door, it’s a win/win.  That much snow I can probably shovel without having a heart attack.  Mother Nature may roar but I AM A MAN WITH A SNOW SHOVEL!  Don’t mess with me!  But still I digress.

The snow-nami settles in and I spend most of the day Saturday in the garage, unheated garage.  Media of all sorts are beating the “be prepared” drum.  “It’s coming and you know it; trees down, lines down, power outages, mayhem.”  In the garage I had 2 kerosene heaters that I had recently brought home from my mother in law’s house when we cleaned it out to sell in November.  They date back to the fuel shortage crisis of the 70s.  I know that my late father in law had not used either of them in at least 20 years.  A week before, in the teaser snowstorm of last week, I had dug out the blue kerosene jugs and taken them to fill for a mere $4.00 a gallon.  I park them in easy access in the garage and wait for the next opportunity to get into the heaters.  Saturday is that opportunity.  I dig out the first one, dismantle it, clean the dust out of it thoroughly, check all the mechanism and pronounce it ready to try.  I fill the tank, wipe everything down well and reach for the lighter.  Click, stick, light, close, and it fires up like it was new.  I close the assembly, adjust the flame and am immediately aware of how good it feels in the unheated garage.  One down, one to go.  I repeat the process with the second heater.  It is a radiant design with a fan to be more directional.  When it fires up I think I’ve hit the mother lode.  I shut down the first heater, put it away on the shelf and pull a stool up in front of the second and bask in my success.

As nice as basking may be it doesn’t get any work done so I situate the heater near a pile of tools that are all over the floor as well as 2 boxes of unorganized tools and supplies.  The next half hour of picking up and sorting to various shelves flies by.  Now I’m on a roll and I prepare to move to the next project; the snowblower.  Yes, a 24 inch, like new Snapper snowblower.  Now I’m not just a man with a snow shovel, I’m potentially a man with a snowblower.  It’s just that “like new” phrase that’s miss leading.

The snowblower has not been used since “Gramps”, my late father in law left us 8 years ago.  Like the heaters it came to my house when we moved “Granny” out of the old house.  Knowing it hadn’t been run in at least 8 years I didn’t hold a lot of hope for it.  I knew what I was up against so I made the best of the situation.  I took 3 milk crates and put them under the tires and blade to get it up to a better working height, relocated the radiant heater to aim at the machine and me and clipped a flood light to a ceiling joist directly overhead.  Once I moved my stool to an appropriate spot I was ready.  My son had spent some time the previous day working on it and by the time he was done told me “we have spark, it barks but won’t run”.  That’s half the battle so I settle in to the fuel system.  Drain the gas tank and clear the gas lines to the carburetor.  Drop the bowl on the carburetor and it’s obvious that it hasn’t run in years.  I venture into the realm of floats, needles and screens.  The carb is taken off and dissembled as far as I could.  The re-assembly goes well and I have at least a little hope at this point.  When I pull the starter rope, nothing.  Again and again, nothing, not a cough, not a chug and certainly not a bang.  At this point, knowing what I did and not knowing what my son did I re-do what he did the day before.  I pull the plug, pull the crank to blow everything out and finally confirm there is a blue spark but there is no sign of “barking” or even coughing.  At this point it’s gotten to be late in the afternoon and I’m ready for a break.  Besides, I have a snow shovel and a plan so what’s to worry about.

When I get back upstairs I can easily see that the snow is still falling sideways.  The weather gurus no longer refer to the snow storm, it’s now a “blizzard”.  Knowing that the snow shovel awaits I take the rest of the evening off and crash in front of the TV.  Of course it’s about this time that the cable goes out.  No TV, no internet, not even the home phone works.  We do something pre-historic; we turn on the radio.  The music is lovely, the on air personality is pleasant and the light-hearted banter about the weather et al is entertaining.  After a break I get out my laptop and fire it up with the aircard so at least we have the internet.  I get reports from the National Weather Service of accumulations in the area of 26 – 30 inches.  (Ultimately we end up with local reports from 30 – 38 inches.)  Oh, well, I have a snow shovel and a plan.

Sunday morning dawns with brilliant sunshine.  I’ve known since Friday that we wouldn’t have church because we meet at the local community college and they had already announced that the campus would be closed.  Other churches that I might visit are closed as well.  Since “my ox is in the ditch” I have little choice other than break out the afore-mentioned snow shovel and get to it.  This is when my plan’s “feet of clay” begin to come into view.

Granny, as mentioned previously, now lives in the front half of my house.  We took 2 rooms and made a living room and bedroom for her.  She has made the space her own and endowed it with all of her neuroses.  Now Granny is 80 years old, has mid-stage Alzheimer’s and has always thought the world revolves around her.  The front door to the house opens to the porch which now opens to her living room.  Alas, it has become HER door.  She doesn’t want anyone going in or out that door.  If you have a good reason, and it better be a really good reason, you may get out that door if it’s daytime but it better be locked like Fort Knox when it’s dark.  On the plus side, it’s bright when I go out to shovel so the eyebrows don’t raise too much besides it’s me and she hasn’t figured out in 38 years how to take me.

I spend the next couple of hours shoveling, resting, shoveling, resting and so it goes.  I clean the front steps off and while I’m doing it our two yellow labs appear swimming their way around the corner attracted by the noise of the shovel.  They had been going in and out the back door for their necessities.  They make a fair path along the side of the house and through the course of the day go back and for a few times.  After the front steps I shovel about 3 feet wide and 30 inches deep the 10 feet to the corner of the truck.  At this point I begin the circumnavigation of my Chevy S-10 pickup (also inherited from Gramps).  Again, about 3 feet wide and almost as deep.  I complete the passenger side, cleaning the door and windows as far as I can reach and settling into the seat to take a break.  There’s more of the same until I have encircled the truck.  The only thing from completing the plan is the wall of snow at the edge of the road pushed up by the snow plows.  Fortunately I have a loving neighbor who assures me that in an hour or two he will take his mini tractor loader and open the access to the road.  Ta Da! The plan worked!  Little did I realize…

The remainder of the day came and went.  My daughter and her family who live within walking distance came over for a mid afternoon lunch and they came in through the plan, that is the path.  After eating, my granddaughter had a bath and took a nap.  Her mom went to run some errands.  This turned out to be a trip for goodies to go with the ball game later since the cable was still out and I had hooked up my converter box, which with a sufficiently large peace of aluminum foil was able to get the local broadcast signals.  As long as we had TV we had company.  When later in the evening they prepared to leave and had to go through Granny’s to leave, the neuroses began to raise her ugly head.  At that point I knew I was doomed.  The plan had failed after all.

I get up at 5:00 in the morning on dialysis days to be at the clinic by 6:00.  Gran-tula doesn’t stir until 7:30-8:00 and then makes a beeline to the coffee pot and it better be ready.  Going out the front door at 5:45 was NOT an option.  Thank goodness for the dog path. 

I knew from shoveling that when those swimmer dogs hit the snow their webbed feet packed it down pretty well.  They’d made several trips to and fro along the path so it was reasonably well packed. For those who wonder about letting the dogs run loose you have to know that they are homebodies at heart and, besides, the snow was almost twice as deep as they are tall so they surely weren’t going far.  I bundled up as usual at the back door and taking a broom for a walking stick headed out.  The first step off the landing gave me hope.  I didn’t sink into the snow.  All along the 80 feet or so that I followed their path my feet only punched through the snowpack a few times.  The broom was very helpful helping keep my balance.  I got to the end of the path and had to negotiate a change in elevation between the dog path and what I had shoveled.  Just as I was taking the step my foot punched through the snow, I lost my balance and ended up lying in the berm of snow I had shoveled the day before.  Where was my plan now?

I realize very quickly that it’s COLD.  The handrail for the steps is out of reach.  The broom handle doesn’t provide much help and I’m faced with rolling over onto my knees and crawling to the steps.  Ordinarily that’s not a big deal for most but huge for me.  Since I had my knee replaced 3 years ago and my hip the year after I’m under doctor’s orders not to kneel down.  It could damage the tendons in my knee by stretching them too far.  Now I can’t say that I’ve never knelt down since then but only a handful of times and then with preparation for something to hold onto going down and getting up.  As I get to my knees in the snow I’m amazed that I have absolutely no pain or particular stiffness.  I move on all fours a few feet to the steps and I put my hands down and push myself into a standing position.  At this point I realize something else; all the pain I expected in my knees are in my glove-less hands.  Hypothermia acts quickly and my fingers are just burning numbness.  I quickly get the door open on the truck and crank it immediately.  As my hands and fingers are throbbing I realize that the windshield is just too frosted to attempt driving.  I grab the scraper mitt and muster the energy to get out and do the windshield.  Getting the mitt on one hand and then another was more work than the scraping.  Finally done I settle back into the truck.

There’s no appreciable heat blowing yet but it’s still much better that being outside.  I decide that I can see sufficiently through the windshield and as I close the door I realize that the latch mechanism is frozen and the door won’t latch.  I strap in and head out, one hand on the steering wheel and one on the door.  The road is entirely smooth.  For snow cover it’s great traveling.  In short order I get out to the main highways only to find an unbelievable mess.  State routes and super highways have one lane open and it’s not always clear or smooth.  I fight the roads to the dialysis center which has been cleared so well it has melted a bit on Sunday and run across the lot creating a sheet of ice in spots.  After parking where I know the sun will shine on the frozen door I gather my goodies and make my way into the center that is warm and bright and suffering from a shortage of attendants.  I’m only 10 minutes late and I smile to myself thinking; I’m a man with a snow shovel and I had a plan.