A few weeks ago, we got slammed with quite a bit of snow in the space of about 24 hours. About two feet or so. Not as much as some past occasions, but still pretty significant. I’ll say one thing for it though, it was absolutely beautiful. Early in the morning, before there was much in the way of traffic, it was deafeningly quiet. The snow thickly coated houses, roads, trees, the mountains across the river—it seemed to just swallow up any sound. Listening for a while all I heard was the occasional whoosh when snow got too heavy for some branches to hold and it slid off, landing on lower branches, causing the snow there to slide off as well, until there is the muffled avalanche I heard. Whoosh.

I live in Northern New York state, tucked way up between Vermont to the east and Quebec, Canada to the north. In fact, Montreal, a couple hours away, would probably be nearest major city. It’s a beautiful place to live. I’m surrounded by mountains, lakes, and trees. And very few people. I can look off the front deck and often not see a living soul. Maybe the roof of a house across the road through the trees might be visible, but that’s it. During the pandemic when the world was in lockdown everybody was avoiding everybody else, my impression was that it was a heck of a lot better here. With so few people around it’s hard to come in contact with someone. No doubt, we suffered a lot less.

Back to the snow. My house sits at the top of a long curving driveway. We’re not talking miles, but long enough. It’s great in that it offers a lot of privacy. It also offers a lot of space for snow to fall. It’s not usually an issue. Many people in the area either have snowplows on their own vehicles or they hire someone to plow them out when necessary. That’s what I’ve been doing for years, and it worked great. Until that morning.

At about 10:30 I gave my plow guy a call. He usually showed up on his own, and I wasn’t too worried. The worst of the snow was over, but there were still some light flakes floating down and I assumed he was waiting for it all to stop before coming over. Never assume. Never EVER assume. When I reached him he told me he was no longer plowing. Oh? This wouldn’t have been a big thing if I had known about it earlier. Like maybe at the end of November when I called him and left a voicemail just confirming we had the same agreement in place that we’ve had for years. He never got back to me, but I didn’t really expect him to. This was very much a “north country” guy. We had gone years without talking to each other. I assumed all was as it should be. That damn assuming thing again.

So, at 10:30 when I called, I was surprised to hear a very relaxed sounding “hello”. It was surprising because I assumed (damn) that he’d be out plowing the driveways of all his customers. He should have sounded tired and hoarse because he would have been up and out before sunrise, sitting behind the wheel, earning his winter dollars. Nope. He had hung up his plow keys for good and no longer braved the frozen driveways of the region. After a moment of shocked silence as I gazed out the window looking at the never-ending expanse of my snow-covered driveway, I told him I was surprised. This was the first I was hearing about it. He said his wife had sent out notices in the spring.

I would never call my former plow guy a liar, but I didn’t get no notice! I made a couple calls trying to scare up another plow guy on very short notice. Nuthin. They were all busy plowing out people already. People they had agreements with, like the one I had assumed (crap) I had with my guy. So, I grabbed my shovel and staggered out into the knee-deep snow.

When I first moved into this house almost 20 years ago, I was cheap enough and dumb enough to shovel the driveway by hand. It sometimes took 8-10 hours, but I did it. Yup, dumb. But 20 years is a long time. Two decades, a score, one fifth of a century. I’m not the same smiling, bursting-with-energy guy I was back then. Actually, while I do still smile on occasion, I was never bursting with energy. The point is though, I would shovel the damn driveway. But that morning, if I had continued the shoveling I’d set out to do, I have no doubt my frozen carcass would have been discovered next spring when the snowbanks begin to melt. I was out there for about two hours before I knew there was no way I was finishing the job. My back hurt, a knee started to ache, snot kept running down my nose, and beneath my winter gear, I was soaked with sweat. All the stunning beautiful-looking snow of the morning was looking a lot less stunningly beautiful.

But then, salvation. I was at the very bottom of the driveway, trying not to cry as I surveyed the wall of ice the street snowplow had deposited there. It looked like I’d be sealed in till June. A neighbor then walked by. I may have given the impression earlier that I have no neighbors. I have them. We just don’t live on top of each other. In fact, I can’t see this neighbor’s house from mine. She looked at the street plow’s work and said I was never going to be able to move that. I agreed. She called her husband. He didn’t have a plow, but he did have a tactor-like thing with a big bucket that’s good at scooping. He came, did the job, and refused any money. Not even for gas. He just shouted at me, over the din, as he trundled down my now-clear driveway, “Neighbors!”

I am so lucky to live here.

The work was done. My fear of having to live snowbound with my wife and cat until spring was dispelled. I put my shovels away, climbed the stairs to the deck, and looked out over the snow-covered mountains. It was all beautiful again. Stunningly so.