My Little Corner of the World

I used to inwardly laugh at the old men aggressively sweeping their front steps of debris or snow. Now I feel solidarity with them.

At the first snowflake, I start obsessing about when to sweep the front steps. My goal is to keep the concrete steps completely clear of snow. I often go out several times during a storm to sweep and shovel. I also like to keep the sidewalk in front of our house and the homes on either side of us clear of the packed snow one gets when many people walk over the freshly fallen snow. Sometimes, though, I'm at work or school and don't get to the work until a hard pack has developed. At those times, I turn the shovel over and try to break up the pack with the sharp edge. I shovel to either end of my neighbors, and I shovel several paths to the street so that those unfortunates who have to park on the street have a clear path to get to the sidewalk. They are neighbors during the evening, but teachers from the local school and shopowners from the stores on Diversey during the day. I secretly hope they appreciate that someone has cleared a little path for them.

I also shovel the back - big, wide paths to both garage entrances, and a nice little dog run around the forsythia bush in the corner. I know the dogs appreciate it - it is one of the few places during the winter they go to the bathroom.

During snows deeper than four inches, I also shovel in back of the garage, a particularly onerous task. Mayor Daley gifted us last summer with big blue trashcans for recycling, and kept the same amount of old black cans. The new cans, combined with the influx of neighbors who keep cars in their garages on the other side of the alley, has drastically reduced the places where one can dump snow. Last year, sans cans and garages that required egress, there were numerous places to dump. One garage door, in particular, accumulated all of the 86 inches of alley snow last year. The little snow hill did not melt until May. This year, people with cars use the garage. The last big snow, my son and I carried the snow from the alley through our garage to dump it in our back yard.

Starting this past Friday, Chicago had one of those big storms. We received about four inches on Friday. I awoke Saturday morning to an additional eight inches on the ground, with 2-4 more inches forecasted by Saturday evening. I despaired.

I had planned to use the day productively reading for classes. My goal was to get ahead a week or two. I like the cushion reading ahead gives me. But my well-ordered school life crashed into my snow obsession. While the front and back were manageable, I knew the alley would be a nightmare. I felt control over my little corner of the world slipping. I've spent too many early mornings calling upon my wife or friendly neighbors to help push my car out of deep ice-covered ruts behind my garage. It would take an entire day to ferry all that snow from the alley into my back yard. The enormity of the task overwhelmed me, and I felt alone and desperate and out of control.

Then, I received a call from Marie, our neighbor. She had negotiated the use of a snow blower and was calling upon all of the neighbors to shovel out the alley. By 12:30, there were ten of us shoveling and blowing. Neighbors opened their garages, and there were many back yards into which we could dump snow. We worked together, feeling ownership not just to clear our own path, but the entire alley.

I met some of my neighbors for the first time along with renewing old acquaintances. Jim and the guy with the funny hat and Courtney and Haim and Marie and Brian. We worked so hard that at the end I could not lift my arms and I just wanted to stand under a hot shower for an hour. But our alley was clear. Everyone lingered, tired, but not wanting this - whatever it was - community? team? shared purpose? to end. Eventually we said our good-byes. We didn't pledge to get to know each other better, or to begin socializing. We all felt the glow, however, of learning that we were not in this by ourselves, and that when called upon, there were neighbors who would give up a Saturday to pitch in and bring control to all of our little corners of the world.