During a winter storm, unspoken fears start piling up
For a hot second on a 5-degree day, I thought the old man across the street had a heart attack on his driveway. All I could see was the possible murder weapon, a shovel, abandoned near a bank of snow.
My instinctive thought was that the elderly neighbor had a “grabber.” His body would be found somewhere nearby, with his frail, wrinkled hand clutching his chest. At that moment, I thought Old Man Winter assassinated another old man. How many of these guys have died from a beloved shovel and accumulating stubbornness? Too many.
This deadly scenario is what middle-aged people like me think while we shovel ridiculously high amounts of snow. In the Chicago metro area, as much as 18 inches of the white stuff pummeled us over the past three days. Valparaiso, where I live, was hit by 18 inches of snow in many spots, mostly in front of my driveway.
At first, a snowplow truck seems like the cavalry is coming to rescue all of us. We can hear its familiar rumbling sound from blocks away. Standing knee-deep in snow, we feel like those abandoned animated characters on the Island of Misfit Toys in “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Nobody wants to plow out a Charlie-inthe-Box, right?
But then we hear the plow truck in the distance, like Santa flying in from the North Pole. Finally, we tell ourselves, our street will be accessible again to the outside world. What a gift. Then, at that moment, we also realize the plow truck just dumped a foot of snow from someone else’s street at the edge of our driveway.
Curses. More shoveling. More worrying. Will our neighborhood lose power? Will my home’s water pipes freeze and burst? Will the roof cave in from the weight of the snow? Will I slip on a patch of hidden ice underneath all that snow and break my arm?
More unspoken anxieties begin blanketing our thoughts, and piling up. Will my car slide off the road into a ditch or onto incoming traffic? Will I suffer a grabber while shoveling a stupid path to my sidewalk? And, looking to the near future, will my basement flood with water when all this snow eventually melts?
These are just some of the quiet fears and seasonal worries that many of us have during a nasty winter storm or dangerously cold temperatures. Some of us whisper nightly prayers. Others light candles just in case. Most of us feel comforted by ancient customs taught to us by our parents and grandparents. For example, turning on the kitchen sink faucet to a slow drip overnight. It feels more like a superstitious ritual than a practical precaution. But we mustn’t anger the gods of winter.
On Monday evening, an old movie popped into my head as I shoveled my driveway in the dark. In the movie, a snarling old sailor told a young boy on the deck of a ship to first spit into the wind before dumping overboard a bucket of dirty water, or something like that. The boy learned his lesson. I need to learn mine.
Each time I tossed a shovel of fluffy snow into the air — on top of an already four-foot tall snow bank — some of it blew back into my face. Every time. No matter which direction I aimed. It was comical. My problem isn’t shoveling all this snow again and again. It’s finding new spots to throw it. My buried mailbox looks like a gasping survivor in an avalanche.
That morning, I hustled to shovel a curbside path to the mailbox to make it easier for our postal carrier who would soon be driving around the corner. I felt obliged to do this after writing a column on a Crown Point postal worker who’s appreciative of such gestures by her patrons. So I feverishly shoveled a drive-by path to my mailbox, looking over my shoulder the entire time for that mail truck.
After finishing the job, I was pelted by a realization. Monday was a federal holiday, Presidents Day, and there was no mail delivery. I shrugged and laughed at myself. Sometimes this is all we can do during these winter storms. And, of course, share our experiences on social media to bond with others in our situation. Or to evoke a reaction of shock or sympathy from our friends and relatives who live in warmer climates.
They usually mock us or marvel at our winter weather. Not so much this winter. It seems like most of the country is enduring similarly harsh wintry weather conditions. Sure enough, it turned out to be true. WGN-TV’s legendary meteorologist, Tom Skilling, confirmed my casual observation on Monday night by telling viewers that 70% of the country is covered with snow or ice.
If Tom says it’s happening, it’s happening. I would trust him with my life when it comes to winter weather forecasts and warnings. His voice alone is as soothing as a bowl of lemon rice soup. Tom lost weight but he hasn’t lost a pound of enthusiasm for his job.
“Winter has finally arrived,” he told TV viewers with his trademark chuckle.
With its arrival, our seasonal fears and worries are piling up again. There’s not enough psychological shovels, I say.
If it was summer, I wouldn’t have thought twice about the health of my elderly neighbor, who mows his lawn almost daily. But on that frigid day I instinctively feared the worst when I saw only his shovel laying in the snow on his driveway. Did he suffer a cardiac event, burying himself in a mound of snow?
I put down my shovel and discreetly glanced around the front of his home. Would I find him or his body, I wondered.
A fat minute later, he popped out from his garage.
“Hey sonny boy, why aren’t you wearing shorts?” he asked sarcastically.