Snow Blows!

The past couple of days have seen snowfall that is measured in feet not inches.  According to the TV we have had double the average snowfall for the year and the winter has a long way to go until spring.  Remembering back to a twenty inch snow fall in April several years ago, I know that the coming of spring is not necessarily the end of the snow season. 

I long ago grew tired of the TV/news fodder that snow storms bring.  The endless reports of chain-reaction auto accidents on the turnpike, people stuck in their cars for the night or the day, jack-knifed tractor trailers.  Also there are the collapsed roofs in Wal-Mart stores, apartment houses without heat due to grimy landlords and shortages of salt and pot holes on all the roads.  I am no longer comforted by the sound of the snow plow at 3:00a.m.  In fact it is downright bothersome.  The salt pollutes the streams and ponds while the plows represent my taxes squandered (on overtime, no less) clearing or tearing up (depending on ones point of view) the black top, helping to create the potholes and distributing tons of the poisonous salt as they scrape noisily through the night.  Lastly, the bright orange, salt spreading behemoths invariably plow the half-melted, heavily packed snow into the mouth of my driveway.  This icy, salty, compacted mass blocks me from either driving out or from easily clearing the driveway as the mass is plowed high and is as dense as concrete and twice as heavy.  As my neighborhood is on the ass-end of the town the plow drivers take a perverted pleasure in hiding here, on the loop of road surrounding our little lake, on gray, snowy days and nights.  I have (no exaggeration here) seen them make six or seven passes of the neighborhood with their trucks over the course of an hour.  No doubt to kill some time and have a smoke or listen to the radio while they ride in their heated cabs and collect double time.  These are the same dudes who normally hold on for dear life to the pipe grips on the rear end of the garbage truck, jumping off and on in the rain and sleet collecting the garbage, recyclables, and trash.  The heated cab is like a vacation in Florida compared to a normal day of garbage pick up.  So, on each pass of the diesel sucking, smoke belching, salt spreading monster my driveway gets more constipated and the town’s coffers become more depleted.  And winter wears on. 

As the winter grinds on the layers of snow and ice building up on the sides of the road -the virgin white tippy-top fresh stuff down to the bottommost deep gray/brown-slowly narrowing the path and making it increasingly difficult to drive or walk.  Pickup trucks with plows spread wide like the wings of steel birds add to the danger on the road.  Taking the dog for a walk becomes more of a task.  When the school bus rumbles down the slick street my dog and I look nervously at the canyon walls of ice, slush and snow rising up three or four or more feet on either side of the road and contemplate emergency escape…just in case.  Defecating becomes a canine challenge as well.  Over the course of weeks the walls lining the sides of the road are not only discolored by soot and soil but by dog urine and turds.  A flat patch of exposed dirt or leaves is like an oasis for the poor mutts who find no pleasure in squatting over a slick of ice or a steep sided pile of snow four feet high.  I normally pick up my dog’s waste when she goes on someone’s lawn or by their mailbox and deposit it in the woods or high grass to compost naturally.  But when it is cold, the wind is blowing, or it is deposited in a pile of snow and salt I just walk on by and let it dissolve.  Apparently that is the practice of all the dog walkers in this neighborhood as one may not walk fifty yards without seeing monster piles of shit on either side of the street.  I judge not lest I be judged.

What would happen, one might wonder, if the snow plows never plowed?  If the salting never began?  If the roads were left all winter to the natural covering of snow, and the natural thawing/freezing cycles of the sun and temperatures?  Would we be trapped inside our homes for the duration because our automobiles would not be able to navigate on the virgin snow, the ice or the thawing puddles?  Would we find that the compacted snow would be fine if you had a four-wheel drive or perhaps sleighs would make a comeback?  Would we pull out our trusty cross-country skis and bear-paw snow shoes and melt away the layers of lard on our arteries getting to the store, to come home tired but healthier?  I wonder.