Digging Out

Following a whole weekend of blizzards, some of us are still trying to extricate our cars and our lives from snow accumulations.  On Sunday morning, I bundled myself in heavy clothing, fired-up my snow-plow-equipped ATV, then blasted through the snow to clear my drive as well as my neighbor’s drive, and open the quarter-mile of country road that connects us to East Helena and then (in theory) Chicago and San Francisco.

Yesterday morning, while meeting with John, my young business partner, I took a call from June, a mutual friend.  “Can you help me?” she asked.  “My car is snowed-in.”

Within a half hour both John and I were across town alongside June, shoveling snow from around her car.  After no more than five minutes we managed to finish and then pushed her car free from the snow-piled curbside.  On our drive back through town, I got off onto another snow-bound side street to negotiate around our local version of “malfunction junction.”  As we drove along, I said to John, “How would you feel if I turned around and we helped another woman dig out her car?”

“Okay,” he said.  “What woman?”

“We just drove by her.  We have our shovels.”

“Sure.”

I flipped directions, drove back a block or so, parked, and then John and I got out and started to dig snow alongside the youngish woman.  We didn’t say much.  After a few minutes I said, “I think that will do.”

The woman thanked us and we went on our way to a warmer than expected day.

--Mitchell Hegman