Plowing Way Back When

This message was shared on Facebook today. It was a timely reminder that there are real people driving the snow plows that are still digging us out of last weekend's blizzard. 

I live on a main road here in Windsor. Our road saw plows up and down it all day Friday and Saturday. But from the pictures friends posted, I know many roads were still impassable even as late as today. I get it. And I believe that if I lived on one of these snowed-in roads, I'd still get it. 

There's a lot of snow out there. 

Growing up on Poplar Street taught me to handle it. We lived on two steep hills. Walking home from school was torturous. Riding a bike downhill wasn't worth the trip back home. These were big hills. Snow was common in our mountain town, and eventually, the plows would make their way to my house. As any school-age kid understands, I moaned and hit my pillow when I finally heard the arrival of their chugging and scraping. 

What I remember most about those long winters in Southwest Virginia is my dad's abhorrence of snow. He hated it. He lived in dread of snowy forecasts. How could someone who could make the best bowl of snowcream in the land despise something I loved? Easy: He wasn't thinking of himself getting out of school. He was thinking of his men down the four-lane who had to be out on the crooked slippery roads of Coeburn in the very snow I loved. 

Dad was the town manager in Coeburn forever. My whole growing up years, save the very beginning when he wrote his column At Random for the Coalfield Progress.(He even had to put the paper to bed before he could make my own birth!) During those winters as the town manager, Dad spent most snowy nights with his men. He'd tell Mom, Shell, and me goodbye before pulling on a jacket, or two. Then he'd whistle for Candi, our Shepherd/Elkhound mix, and the two of them would disappear slowly down the driveway and off our double hill. I think we always knew he'd be OK as long as Candi was with him.

I don't know how many plows Coeburn had back in the '70s and '80s. But I do know that Dad and Candi operated one of them, taking turns with the other men so that nobody'd get too tired. I doubt that it made the job get done any faster, but I imagine the comradery may have boosted a few spirits. I recall that Dad wouldn't dream of staying put in a warm cozy home while his men were not. 

Decades later, standing before Dad's casket down at the Hagy-Fawbush Funeral Home, one of these men reminded me of Dad's snow plow trips. He remembered Candi, "the Snow Plow Dog", and he was teary-eyed as he recounted the number of cold nights they'd endured together. This didn't surprise me, but it did touch me on a deep level. Dad had a passion for people's needs - not one he just talked about, but one he acted on. 

His snowcream may have been the best, but his sense of duty and genuine concern for others topped even that.