We had a blizzard this weekend.  We had 30 inches of snow between Friday night and Sunday morning.  It was a top-5 snow event for us.

My family and I started snow removal on Sunday morning.  I was outside by 7am.  I purchased an electric snowblower last year, so I thought I would be ok.  The snow blower is ok, for snow totals up to 12-18 inches.  But it wasn’t so useful for the 30 inches we had.  In order to really make it work, someone had to chop the snow into manageable 12-18 inch piles.

Around 3pm or so, as the sun started setting in the west, I started to realize that we were not going to clear our driveway on time.  Not a biggie, I guess.  Schools were probably going to be closed, and I could work at home on Monday.  But I was starting to wish that my snowblower was a dump truck with a plow.

(I did leave a message for our landscaper in the morning, who also snowplows our driveway.  But our street was not passable, so I assumed he wasn’t going to make it.  When he did arrive later in the day, he was out of gas, and his trucks were getting stuck in snowdrifts).

That is when our next door neighbors appeared.  Kevin and Lori live next door to us.  If I can brag for a minute, I have to say that I have better next door neighbors than you do.  Not that I have anything to do with it, but they are two of the finest people I’ve ever met.  They are exactly the kind of people you want to live next to.  They love living here, and it shows.  They are transplants from the Pittsburgh area.  Perfect neighbors in every way.

Except for the Pittsburgh Steelers flag that they hang outside on some Sundays in the fall.

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Anyway, around 3pm, Kevin and Lori stopped by our driveway, with their little friend Toro.  Toro is the name of their snow blower.  I know that, because it said so on the front of the blower.  A big snowblower, by the way.  I think you could probably fit a sofa into the front end of this thing. Kevin and Lori started to help, and our driveway was cleared by 5pm.

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I was surprised.

I should not have been surprised, at least not by Kevin and Lori’s actions.  They are good and kind people, generous with their time and their effort.  Our neighborhood is better for them being a part of it.

I was surprised because….I guess because I’ve been struggling a little bit with humanity lately.  My expectations are kind of low.  Maybe it’s the Winter Blahs, but I’m in a place right now where I expect people to disappoint me.  If they do, I’m not surprised, and if they don’t, there is upside.

I’ve had a few people disappointments recently.  Nothing major.  Just a few little snubs, oversights, and the like.  Things that made me go “hmmmm”.

One of my friends talks about trying not to rely too much on other people.  She says “the cavalry isn’t coming”.  What she means is that if I have a problem, it is up to me to solve it.  No one else is coming to fix it for me.

So when Kevin and Lori showed up with a smile and a plow, I was surprised.

Let me see what I can do to pass it on.

Hal