Somehow I had always missed the real snowstorms. Whereever we lived, it was always the same. No snow. Oh we had had piddling snow falls of a few inches a few places, but it never compared to the monstrous storms that my parents had talked about from time to time. My grandparents talked about the snow that covered the fence that kept the cows in, and all the havok that caused. My parents talked about snows in Chicago that sealed them off from the outside world. My cousin talked about drifts that got all the way to the roof of his house. Now those were snows. When all you have seen in a couple of inches from time to time, you just can't imagine it. Well, that's not true. You do, but you have no idea.
The year I moved to New Jersey was no different than any other. They had a warm dry winter. Now, I wasn't really complaining, but I was sort of looking forward to seeing a real snow. I knew the feeling was nieve, and that I would soon be cursing it like the rest of the locals, but for one snow, it would be magical. The stuff of childhood relived. I wanted it to snow. I wanted it to snow like I had never seen before.
zip... zero.... nada....
There was one brief snow about Christmas time that got my hopes up. I had driven to one of the local diners here and had gone in book in hand. The waitress was cute and the book was good, so I stayed for a good couple of hours. When I went out, my snow was covered and the flakes that were falling were huge. I had never seen flakes that big before. They fell more like feathers. As the door to the diner closed, I heard the waitress cursing. She didn't have a scraper. So being a good samaritan, I brushed my car off, and gave her mine. I had another one, a better one, at home anyway.
In truth, I don't remember how much we got that night, but I do remember not being impressed. The event was impressive. The result was not. It just wasn't a real storm. It was the biggest that year.
The following year I wasn't anticipating much. The great northern snows had proven to be not so great. If anything the winters in NJ were more pleasant than the winters I was used to in the midwest. Midwest winters have these killer days of bone chilling cold. They also get ice storms, which although pretty, are a real bear to live through.
For those of you who don't know what I am talking about, look out your window. Imagine that overnight everything was coated with a fourth of inch of ice. Think about the weight on the trees. Think about driving on the roads. Think about the little problem of simply getting in your car to start up the heater. It is beautiful, but only if you don't have to go anywhere and don't own property with trees.
Anyway, I once got this gallon bucket of hot water on one of these ice storm days. No, I am smart enough not to throw hot water on an iced windshield. The reason for the bucket of hot water is simply this. If you hold it close to your skin, you stay warm why you are chistling out your car.
So, where was I, NJ year two. The weatherman had been preaching that this great storm was coming. I heard him say it everyday for almost a week. Its coming. Get out your shovels. It will be here on Thursday. Thursday came. Nothing. It will be here on Friday. Friday came. Nothing. It will be here on Saturday. Saturday came....
I didn't believe them. You gotta remember I had seen floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, but snow storms were for other people. I never was in a real snow storm.
It started at 7 am. I was barely awake. I was dressed, but still hadn't looked out the window. It was Saturday after all. I was just thinking about breakfast when there was this knock at my door.
I looked over, and the chain wasn't on, and I hardly ever lock my door. Its one of those midwest things, and the building is generally locked downstairs, so I thought that it must be my neighbor across the hall. It was early for her though. Shoot it was early for me.
Come in...
Never say come in and reveal that your door is generally kept unlocked. You never know who might take you up on it.
In this case, it was a mountain of a man. This guy was 17 or 18 and had to be almost 7 feet tall. Everything was peirced. Nose, eyebrow, ear. His words to me. A total stranger at 7 am were:
Can I borrow a snow shovel.
Now I wasn't really awake. I thought I was, but obviously I had either slipped on a rug and bumped my head or was snoozin on the couch. I say this not because of the sight before me, but because of my response to him.
No, but I have a dust pan you could borrow.
Really, those are the words that came out of my mouth on that early morn. I swear the look on his face was utterly priceless.
He mumbled something and just turned and walked out.
Clump... clump... clump.... down the stairs. SLAM!
About then, reality set in. What had just happened? I went over to my balcony door and opened the blinds. There was at least 15 inches of snow piled up against my patio door. Wow.
About that time, I started to laugh. I had just told Goliath to shovel that with a dust pan.
I got on some winter clothes and went outside.
The first thing I noticed was how incredibly hard it was to do a simple thing like walking. The next thing I noticed was this 18 foot long trailer in front of me that was facing the wrong way in a one exit parkling lot. Yep, you guessed it, The not so jolly giant and his pals had parked there to catch a few z's and woke up to a nasty surprise.
I didn't really want to get too close to these guys, as they were all a little weird looking, but it was obvious that they were determined to get back on the road. I figured that was better than camped in my parking lot.
I started to help dig the ninety some feet it was going to take to get that beast turned around and back to the road. It was then that I realized I was being stupid.
Our parking lot regularly had a snow sweeper parked in it. It belonged to the apartment complex and when I moved in they had said that they would sweep the snow from the parking lots.
I told the mountain this, and said his best bet was to go bribe the driver to do this lot first. It turned out that they had driven down for a skateboarding contest and had to get back to Chicago. I can just imagine how the rest of their drive went.
Anyway, I went upstairs to call the land lord and my parents called. It was nothing major, but when I looked out the window. I saw the plow shooting a trail for the trailer. It was launching literally buckets of snow up and to the sides of the main blade. In essence, it was burying my car and that of my neighbors.
Great.....
This time I borrowed the shovel from a neighbor. Thankfully, they gave me a shovel and not a dust pan. (I really didnt own a snow shovel) I went down to dig out my car. Since my neighbor was nice enough to lend me the shovel, I began to dig out their car too. It was a small thing, but I thought it was just courtesy.
The neighbor saw me shoveling their car out, so of course they came out to help. Then, we started to dig out our other neighbor because we knew if we didn't she wouldnt do it. She saw us, and brought down some hot chocolate for us. Pretty soon, we had the entire complex digging everyone else out.
Of course, we couldn't get out of the parking lot without spinning tires in the street with unshovelled snow.
