Having received yet another pounding of snow in the last 24 hours, which is still coming down (by the way), and come in from a feeble attempt at shoveling, I’m wondering when Winter became less exciting and such an incredible hassle.

As a kid growing up, snow meant a few distinct things:

1. My brothers and I had to spend some time shoveling
2. We’d head over to the hill near Lawrencewood Shopping Center and go sledding
3. We’d get a couple friends together and play some snow football

In the first case, it was such a part of our routine, I guess I never thought about it too much.  Growing up, it was something my dad was definitely going to do and we were expected to help.  We didn’t have a snow blower, something I think we relegated to people too lazy to do the actual work.  In my father’s mind, I can’t imagine why he’d think he needed one when he had three sons anyway… For us, it was somewhat of a rite of passage to be doing it in the first place and I always enjoyed spending the time with him regardless.  If anything, the challenging part was that we had a long driveway that ran to the back of the house, and none of the cars were ever in there.  As a result, it took quite a while between cleaning the cars off, scraping ice off windshields as needed, then shoveling the sidewalk, driveway, and back patio… by comparison, my current workload is probably a third of that… and I did the previous amount for years, as a kid…

When it came to play, I don’t remember giving much consideration to the temperature, wind chill, or anything.  We just bundled up and looked for a good sledding run (ideally with a jump in it) or a long pass completion in the football game.  Something about throwing and catching a football with gloves on felt like a major accomplishment.  The worse the visibility, the better.  It’s worth noting that we walked (as young kids) a half mile to the park, crossing a major road, without having to be driven by our parents… how unconscionable (in today’s environment).

Our preoccupation with school being out had nothing to do with temperature, driving conditions, or safety.  It was based on having more time to play.  My memory of the Blizzard of 1979 is associated with the gigantic snow drift that was several feet high around our back door and the huge igloo we carved out of the snow pile in front of our garage… Beyond that?  Well, the Chicago Mayor lost the ensuing election because he was blamed for a lousy response to the weather.  Otherwise nothing.  I was a kid.  What was I supposed to notice anyway?

These days, Winter has become an entirely different experience.  Like many other people in the Chicago area, I can’t stand it.  Getting places is a hassle; the cold is annoying, even with a warm winter coat; clearing snow is a chore I’d rather not do; and my preference would be to throw a few logs in the fireplace, hunker down, and wait for Spring to arrive.  When exactly I became the Grinch?  I have no idea.

So, here’s the thing: somewhere along the way, I seem to have lost the fun stuff and added a bunch of ‘responsibility’ in it’s place that simply isn’t so fun.  As a kid, I may have sat in the car on the way to the grocery store to get food, but I wasn’t worried about my parents driving in snowy or icy conditions to make sure we had something to eat.  I wasn’t bothered by people buzzing around in SUVs (largely because they didn’t exist yet), as if the concept of 4-wheel drive means your car doesn’t need contact with the road surface to stop.  I may have had to walk a mile to junior high (now ‘middle school’) every day, but I don’t remember being bothered about the “wind chill factor”, we just bundled up more.  I don’t know that the actual weather conditions were much different, but my point of view certainly has changed, and not entirely for the better.

Oddly enough, one thing I miss is a very simple item that I can address, of which I was reminded this morning when a neighbor came and graciously helped clear my driveway with his snow blower.  It is the ability to do something for someone else.

In our first house, we had an elderly couple next door where the husband had a heart condition.  As winter would come along, I would make sure to clear their snow for them, at first, just shoveling them out by hand and then with my snow blower (when I eventually got one).  Such a simple thing, but knowing I’d done something to make things easier for them felt great.  It is what my father would’ve done and in a small way, even though he’s no longer with us, it’s a way I can pay him a measure of respect for the man he would’ve wanted me to be.  No doubt I’ve fallen short in other ways, but something as simple as doing good because its the right thing to do does mean something, it feels great, and the world is a better place when you take advantage of those opportunities.

Well, this became a little longer note than I expected… but I guess, in reflection, I need to stop procrastinating and get that monster snow blower I’ve been pondering.  Having been somewhat of a nomad since my divorce a few years ago, I guess I’ve wanted to know I’d be on stable footing at one address long enough to use it.  What I’ve given up is an ability to help other people, and it’s probably a poor tradeoff to have made.  The other thing I need to do is get outside with the girls and make a few snow angels… and also figure out something fun we can do in the snow here and there… We can’t change what makes a Chicago Winter so challenging, but it’s probably the case that I can make it a little more bearable with a healthier state of mind.  Having gone skiing (or “falling down a mountain” as I more appropriately refer to the experience) for the first time for four consecutive days in Salt Lake City many years ago with Kathy, I do know it’s possible to have a lot of fun under the right conditions, albeit I’ve never been so sore in my life given the physical beating I took…

Looking outside, it would seem that a couple fresh inches of snow have covered up what was a relatively clear driveway when I started writing this… guess it’s time to get the coat back on, think of my father for a second, stop complaining so much, and get to work…right after I dive headfirst into the front lawn… Geronimo…

-CJG 01/05/2014