Walking After the Blizzard
Kevin Gray
With cabin fever about to overtake her last Thursday, Diane wanted to go walking. Why not? Just because most of our neighborhood was covered in anywhere from 8 inches to waist deep drifts did not seem like much of a hindrance. Oh, and it was 16 degrees out there but under a very bright sun. I liked the idea. And besides, I had already been all over Osawatomie taking snow activity pictures the previous day.
My shoveling had been completed over a two-day period, even making a pathway for our mail lady, who usually cuts from our side street up our side yard and around to the front door. All she needed was the No Parking street sign post, where I started the path, to pull herself up and on to safer footing and into the yard.
I wasn’t sure if Diane realized what a trek our walk could be, but off we went, once booted up and she in her heavy and hooded winter coat and me in my heavy fleece jacket and ski cap. Brisk and invigorating are two good words for what met us, when crossing the street to the Ursuline Academy grounds. That and snow, lots of it.
As in Osawatomie, our city crews cleared streets and city-owned walkways nicely. Anything not city owned, like the rest of the grounds beyond the Paola Community Center, meant we struck out into the pristine and sparkling drifts.
By the time we struggled across the field and climbed up – holding on to one another – and over about 3 feet of bladed snow to the cleared lane still on the academy grounds, we were laughing at not believing what we had just done. The snow’s depth of about a foot in most places wasn’t hard to negotiate. It just took time. Stepping on the bladed pile, though, meant sinking down about two feet and pushing forward. Now, this was the funny and laughable part.
Walking being our objective, we chose to stick to the cleared lane leading up to the Mother House and circle around to where we headed into the nearby side streets. Unlike Osawatomie, where I had shot “snow pictures” of people clearing sidewalks or kids playing in the snow, I didn’t notice anybody out shoveling or any kids playing.
“What gives?” I mentioned to Diane several times. “You should’ve seen those folks down in Osawatomie busily shoveling yesterday,” I said. “Same time of day, too.” Don’t get me wrong. I saw plenty of guys in pickup trucks with blades on the front and flatbed trailers on back with Bobcats or a variety of four-wheeler vehicles out to clear snow on our Paola streets. I just wasn’t seeing people clearing sidewalks, like they had been doing in Osawatomie.
At least a few sidewalks here and there had been cleared. This is what we felt like in a way. Few cars could be found driving on the side streets, so we had made good time. But to actually get home, either Wea or Peoria streets would have to be used.
With huge lines of bladed snow over each curbing narrowing down the streets width and plenty of vehicles coming and going, our route looked like Bill Keane’s Billy character in Family Circus weaving here, then there, and doubling back to find a shoveled section or two. Down one street only to find snow-covered sidewalks and back up to where we could follow a cleared walk for a short distance and then backtrack because of some huge barrier.
During the doubling back and forth, I recognized what our mail lady had been doing. She used what cleared walks she could, walked through yards from one porch to another where the snow didn’t appear to be too deep, but in many cases, she had to wander out into busy Wea Street, like us, and come back into cleared drives, thereby weaving her own new delivery route.
Our little trek demanded no time limitations, unlike the mail lady’s route. Our little trek lasted as long as we chose due to conditions (snow hurdles and the cold temperatures); the mail lady had to complete her route or else. Our little trek had been fun and full of discoveries, whereas, I’m sure the mail lady went home exhausted, only to get up the next day, and the next, and the next to do it all over again.
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Posted by admin
on Feb 9 2011. Filed under Kevin Gray, Opinion.
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