BUT THEN AGAIN: It ain't easy being Mr. Plow

Plows aren't having a very good winter this year.

They wander the streets and roads, searching aimlessly, moaning their diesel moans. The yellow is rusting now, and the rumble of steel is silent. In pairs, you can see them, window to window, nose to tail in commiserating conversation, idling in nude parking lots. It’s a bad year to be a snowplow guy.

If the sun goes behind a cloud, if the temperature drops a few degrees, you can see them prowling around the routes by the Rising ranch, their brightly colored plows raised to the sky as if in prayer to the snow gods. Big treaded tires whine on the dry pavement, mocking the men inside hoping to make extra cash clearing the way for you and me.

The big rigs run by the municipality are nowhere to be seen, holed up in lairs, hungry for mailboxes. The mountains of sand, salt and cinders are just that this year, mountains. By this time last year, they were all molehills.

A chance meeting with our plowman outside the liquor store. He was carrying a loaded box going out towards his plow truck, which I noticed was not the same one he had last year. This model was older, rusting and much smaller. I’m pretty sure it was a pre-war model. Pre WW-I. Last year, we were paying tribute to this man on a regular basis. At X dollars a throw, he was making XXX a week, sometimes with us shelling out the sacrifice twice in 24 hours. He bought a Ferrari at the end of the season and had his plow gold plated and placed on a truck the size of my garage. We will call him Mr. Plow:

“Mr. Plow, how are you?”

MP: (unintelligible snarl)

“I see you traded in the monster plow truck you bought last season.”

MP: (unintelligible angry snarl)

“Well, the weather guy who wears the funny hats on the TV says February will be even warmer. Isn’t that great?”

MP: (unintelligible weeping snarl)

He stalked to his truck, raised and lowered the plow a few times and screeched out of the parking lot. I could not swear that he had a bottle to his lips as he did this.

Waiting in February for the first snowfall is like living in a downstairs apartment waiting for the other shoe to drop. You know it’s coming, but don’t know when. Like many things in life, you never know when it will happen, how long it will last or how many inches you will get.