“You ought to be paying me! You’re working in a freaking winter wonderland!” I was on a roof, a steep roof, in the snow, when Matt Bockensteadt, my employer at the time, yelled that to his crew. It was cold and scary and a long way down. I shivered.
Another time, in Delhi, Iowa, I woke up at my friend Frank’s parent’s house to what looked like an avalanche outside the window. Frank and Matt were high school chums growing up in Delhi way before I knew either of them.
Accompanying the snow, I heard thumping on the roof and envisioned reindeer or a snowy apocalypse.
“Where’s Frank,” I asked his mom.“Shoveling the roof,” she replied mater-of-factly. 'Of course,' I thought, 'like one does.'
I’m reminded of these incidents on a day like today, walking to the Lindquist Center from just south of campus, past the Quick Trip on the corner of Madison and Burlington. It is a winter wonderland out there. It’s not my favorite snow today. I like the warm snow, the soggy, big flake snow that drapes itself over the grass and leafs on the ground, draping them with cold messy beauty. They melt for a while upon contact before beginning to cover it up. Those are catch on your tongue snowflakes; that is snowball snow. It’s not the best to walk to class in as it clings and moistens unduly. And, it’s just not as pretty. Today, it’s cold. The snowflakes are small and the wind is still. They float on the air as much as fall, turning the sky white with slow motion. They don’t melt, and they don’t stick. It’s too chilly to be sticky. They just pile up in and around the grass, covering it by slow degrees, four inches in eight hours. If they land on your shoulder, they brush off or fall off in the least breeze of movement. This is the snow of Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods”.
Which is to say that it ain’t that hard to shovel.
Last year, the ice build up on the two sidewalks outside of QuikTrip lasted from first freeze to final thaw. It looks like they’re gearing up for that performance again this year. This doesn’t so much surprise me – Iowa City businesses – with notable exceptions – are abysmal at scooping their walks. But this with QT is what I really don’t get.
The weather report confirms that the snow is coming down at half an inch per hour. This means if QuikTrip sent out a minimum wage employee once an hour, said employee would have to move half an inch of snow off the walk with a shovel. No shovel, you might wonder? They sell them. What about accumulations overnight? They’re open 24 / 7.
But last year, it may be noted, was an icy year. Ice storm after ice storm. That was beautiful, too, except for the broken trees that reminded me more of Frost’s “Birches,” ice sickles on the ground like the dome of heaven had shattered, or hanging from the trees like a coat of diamonds. But that stuff’s not like shoveling powdery snow. It’s freezing.
QuikTrip sells ice melt.
So, one might want to ask: why does a store, staffed with young able employees, a store that is open all night on a corner lot and has an inventory of shovels, a store that sells ice melt, why does such a store not think it has a responsibility to, oh, I don’t know, people who walk – not to mention those that get around by wheelchair or other mobility device – not think it has a responsibility to shovel the sidewalk. Or maybe they think their frozen burritos are community service enough.
Maybe they’ll figure this out at some point, but in the mean time they’re Scrooging up my Winter Wonderland.
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