Shoveling Snow

I remember growing up in Moline every year we would endure the first snowfall. I have certain memories of this time every year. This always meant my father would be gassing up the snowblower and doing our driveway. You could smell the gas that he put in that machine from a mile away. The beast of a snowplow was absolutely deafening as we sat inside the house intimidated by that noise, but we also found it pretty of noxious as kids. We were usually trying to watch TV and that loud ass snowplow was interrupting our ability to watch. I am not going to sugarcoat this, but we were pretty lazy. 

This one thing also seemed to happen just about every year much like the assurance that it would eventually snow at some point. The blade of the snowplow would hit a certain part of our driveway and cause all sorts of issues. Usually, the darn thing would just shut down. This happened every year, along with the guaranteed profanity laced tirade that my father would go on after the snowplow shut down. If he did anything well at all, it was his legendary cussing. It wasn't that he just knew more words than everybody else because he didn't. It was the rage in which he went on these tirades. The type of rage that made me as a kid go hide with the dog behind the couch. 

Yep, every year the snowblower would somehow limp through and finish the job, so we could eat dinner. I would always remember the smell that my father would bring in when he was finished. You never seem to forget the smell of sweat and snow. I believe that there is nothing like it in this world. A few years later, I moved in with my brother at my grandparent's old house. With the first snow of the year, when I first started staying there gave me insight into growing up. I realized how much it it truly sucks to shovel snow, how easy we really had it as kids, and doing Han Solo on Hoth impressions while we shoveled was a lot of fun.