Summer Saturday with Snow Blower

Dad came over Saturday, the last weekend of summer, to help with my snow blower. My snow blower. I can’t afford such luxuries. When he sold his house to move in with his new wife, he parceled out multiple unneeded belongings. I live in the country with a long driveway, so I ended up with the snow blower. For free. I’m grateful.

Not as useful a device as would seem, though. It’s heavy, and my driveway faces an incline to the road. Even with the tires driving, getting this machine up to the road (I don’t even try to park at the bottom of the drive during winter) is quite a task. Just shoveling is often easier. However, at the end of last winter, snow fell and fell and fell, a few feet each day. Time for the snow blower—but it wouldn’t start, even after heroic efforts.

This is too great a waste of expensive machinery, so when my niece and nephew cancelled a “grandfather” project over schoolwork concerns, Dad suggested coming out to my place to help.

I accepted. Not lightly. Dad takes over. This would mean all day Saturday. He’s retired. I’m buried in career issues. Still, I can’t fix it, he might be able to fix it (he’s much more of a mechanic than I), and it needs fixing. He’s trying to balance out the grandfatherly attention my siblings’ families receive, but nonetheless, admittedly, damn nice of him.

Dad considers this a mission. Early in the morning, he calls—needs the make, model, engine number and so forth. He’s on his way to purchase spark plug, new oil, and garnish whatever information he can at the shops along the way. I find the information, and go run my own errands.

Early afternoon, he’s here. I’m ready—snow blower outside, cord ready for electronic start. I don’t do any of the usual things I’d do for such a favor—food and drink ready, for example—because I know he’ll disregard all of them. He’ll disregard everything. For example, when he asks if I have a certain size screw on hand, I offer to run to the store. No. We make do. I don’t know why. He always does this—along with recommending later that I go get that size screw.

Early on, I get stung by a wasp. First damn time all year. I’m pissed. Right in the back of the neck. Can’t see it, of course. But Dad’s here. If I can find tweezers. I have them. Can’t find them. We go to the store—he wants to talk to the snow blower repair guy anyway. We have just enough time before they close. He ends up with carburetor cleaner. I end up with “After Bite.” When I finally get tweezers, I’m too swollen to find the stinger. I’m pissed. I hold my tongue.

He’s absorbed with the snow blower, sounding like he’s talking to me, but really not. “I’m going to go cut some grass while you do this, OK?” I ask. “Go ahead,” he nods, barely noticing.

I cut grass. After a bit, I hear snow blower over the sound of the lawn mower. Dad’s still engaged. I keep mowing for a while. Eventually, I cut the engine and mosey over.

“Well, we’ve got it running,” Dad notes, “but it’s running hot. That bolt just shot out of the exhaust.” I look—a six inch lies in a black line on the grass. “It was glowing,” Dad adds. I notice my normally gregarious dog has moved from her favorite spot near where Dad is working to the opposite end of my yard. Smart dog.

I leave Dad to puzzle it out, and return to mowing. Eventually, I hear the snow blower start again. I keep mowing. Again, eventually, I mosey over. Oil everywhere. Still runs hot. Dad is stymied. “Soon as it starts,” he notes, “when you turn the choke, it just runs fast!” I look. “What if you don’t turn the choke all the way to the left?” I ask. Dad considers. He tries it. The machine runs roughly, but without glowing parts threatening to blow up the engine.

I ask if he can change the oil while he’s at it, knowing he’ll actually welcome this. He asks if I have a pan to catch the oil. I find one. He changes the oil, and spends a long time spraying every moving part with WD-40, whipping and cleaning everything possible, leaving everything in as good a shape as possible.

That’s Dad.

Writer

Snow Day

Beware the ides of April, I guess.

After yesterday's freak snow storm, I took one look at my car and realized I'd be stuck for hours. I called campus, cancelled classes, made coffee, and set out to shovel the eighteen inches of wet, heavy snow (not to mention what the snow plow had left). I managed to clear enough snow to open the car door, start it, and crank up the radio for company while shoveling.

I typically listen to NPR, and soon the news broke about the shootings at Virginia Tech. What's to be said?

However, I didn't spend my day thinking about what's wrong with the world. Slowly shoveling the heavy snow, laboriously walking each load to the bank, I remembered a few months back when day after day of lake effect snow buried the county. The snow blower my dad gave me when he sold his house wouldn't start, and I was forced to shovel day after day, for hours, until my muscles could barely tolerate lifting the shovel, and the banks towered over me--and that's just clearing an area to park by the road.

Barely able to move, sore and exhausted in those back to back days of endless storms, I looked at the sea of snow yet to be crossed. I needn't have worried. A stranger stopped, surveyed the expanse, and set about plowing it back. When I could free my car, I moved it, and he pushed back every bank as far into my trees as possible. The next day, as I was buried again, a neighbor drove up in his loader (we live in the county, so houses aren't close), cleared the new snow, and went down my 200 foot driveway as far as he could, lifting the now four feet of snow and moving it to the line of trees. The next day after that, the neighbor on the other side (again, quite a distance) walked his snow blower over, cleared my parking area, then cleared a path down the rest of the driveway as far as possible. And the following day, someone else (with a different size plow) cleared my place while I was at work.

As I shoveled yesterday, I saw the signs of their work and remembered their spontaneous kindness. I thought about all the times over the years I've had road side trouble, or got stuck, waiting for someone to stop and help. Someone always did. I never doubted it--I just assumed. That's what people do.

The world is still a wonderful place.

Writer