Back in the day, when I was just a young boy, my family used to live behind this woman named Mrs. Tober. At the time, my father owned a landscaping company called “The American Homecare Company”. Him and my mother did what they could with the company to make ends meet. I have many stories about my father’s company, this is just one of them.
Mrs. Tober was an older woman, who lived alone in a larger house with a multi-bay garage, a large driveway, and a fair size lawn. My father had worked out a deal with Mrs. Tober that we would tend to her landscaping affairs and she would board our equipment for us. Tending to her landscaping affairs included mowing her lawn, grooming the hedges, cleaning up the autumn leaves, and winter snow removal, amongst other things as well.
By far, the winter snow removal was my least favorite task. As I said before, at the time I was just a young boy. No taller than the handle of a snow shovel and barely any taller than the large retaining wall that surrounded her property. Also, as I said before, her driveway was quite large. Large enough for a multi-bay garage, with space enough to turn a car around in. The bottom half of the driveway sloping down towards the street. Also, at the time, my father had no snow plow. Those of us who grew up shoveling snow from driveways, know that a snow plow really is a beautiful thing.
So, anyways, no snowplow, a young, short boy, a large retaining wall, a downward sloping driveway, New England winter snowstorms. I know you might be thinkin right about now, “Why didn’t you just use a snowblower Miah?”. And I would tell you, “cuz this isn’t a fuckin snowblower story, it’s a fuckin shoveling story.” So chill out.
Like I was saying, anyways, after a snowstorm, Mrs. Tobers property turned into the most dangerous game a little boy could pray for. Imagine. Sometimes it would rain before the snow and you wouldn’t know until you took a step onto her sloping driveway. If one was to be standing at the top of the driveway, one would slip and fall down the driveway. If one was to be standing at the bottom of the driveway, one would slip and fall into the street. Every once in a while the big town plow trucks would come by and shoot all the snow back into the end of the driveway. A grand adventure! And the retaining walls! Yes! The walls! I would have to load up my shovel and one toss at time, above my shoulders to the top of the wall. I had to do this with enough foresight to realize that not only must I toss the snow high! I must toss the snow far! For that was a lesson learned the hard way. As the storms pile up, so does the snow. So one storms solution becomes the next storms problem. Being too short to toss it higher than last storms pile, my new tosses would fall back onto me. Defeat! Ohhh Mrs. Tober!! Cold were these days in hell! I lament!
Even then, it would be a grand decision on whether it be best to start at the top and work my way down, or work from the bottom up. Both having their advantages and disadvantages. Situational awareness training at its best. For light work, it proved best to start at the top and work my way down, my momentum behind me. Easy scooping. For heavier jobs, I found it best to start at the bottom, work my way up, one scoop at a time. Best to start at the bottom where the work is the hardest. That way, when the work starts getting easier, you know you’re almost there. And when you get to the top, you know there’s still work to do, but it’s easier than it was when you started. No matter what route I took, I knew my job was done when I walked down to the bottom from the top, looking back up, knowing that the people at the bottom could make it safely to the top.
-Miah
The Time Traveler 
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