Winter, Whittier and My Old Dad

 

My Driveway - All Shoveled Clean!
(Thanks to Dave and Anna for shoveling off the first seven inches!)

When it snows, like it has this week, I think of winters past, my old Dad and the poem "Snow-bound: A Winter Idyl " by John Greenleaf Whittier.

I am sure that my Dad did not read poetry. He read the West Plains Daily Quill, front to back, every day. He would read the occasional book or magazine, but poetry... Naaah.

However, Leamon Riggs and the father of JG Whittier shared a common wintertime custom.

It was a ritual around the Riggs house. The morning after a big snowfall, he would roust my brother Ralph and I out of bed with the announcement, "Come on boys, it's time to shovel some snow."

In line sixty-seven of "Snow-bound", Whittier's father expresses it differently, but with the same meaning; "Boys, a path!"

After bundling up in coats, boots and sock hats; we grabbed the shovels and went to work. Our "tools of the trade" were usually a regular snow shovel, a couple of old grain shovels and a broom.

We would begin by shoveling paths. A path from the wood box on the carport out to the wood pile. A path from the back patio, down across the yard to the "little door" of the shop. Paths to the pickups and other vehicles parked near the shop. Dad would use the broom to carefully sweep the snow from the vehicles and then we would shovel path around them!

When all the "path-shoveling" was complete, it was time to get down to business. 

The apron on the shop was shoveled off, the gravel parking area in front of the shop was shoveled off and the patio was shoveled off.

Were we done? Not by a long shot! It was time to start on the driveway!!

You may think I am exaggerating but I remember times when we shoveled the entire driveway, from the carport down to the county road. A distance of two to three-hundred feet!

This was my dad's reasoning. Get the snow off the walking and driving surfaces before it gets packed down. If you get most of the snow off the surface, the sun will do the rest.

I have found that "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"... "I'm a chip off the ole block" or some such idiom.

When the snow stops falling, I find myself, outside, snow shovel and broom in hand, making the snow fly!!

A path from the front porch to the carport. A path from the front porch, around the house to the back deck. A side path to the propane tank. A path from the path to the carport to my in-law's house next door...

And then the driveway...

From the carport, out to the county road...

As I am shoveling, my mind wanders back to those times spent with my dad. It wasn't extraordinary. It wasn't "fun". It was hard, backbreaking labor that at the time, I begrudged. Now however, it's a bittersweet memory of Winter, Whittier and My Old Dad...