A Jerk-Free Guide to Snowblowing

One of my earliest childhood memories is waking up at 3 a.m. to the sound of my father, Sid, shoveling our driveway. When it came to snowstorms, his philosophy was shovel early, shovel often. The wheels came off this philosophy during the Blizzard of ’78, when so much snow fell so fast that even my superhuman father could not get ahead of it. Sid, a man who doled out compliments like they were his own molars, gave much respect to that monster of a storm.

Still, he was not a believer in the snowblower until later in life, when dropping dead from a shoveling-induced heart attack became a possibility. I was relieved when he finally bought one. However, as a fourth-generation Swamp Yankee Masshole (aka: the product of a rural, farming community in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts), my father developed a philosophy and bylaws that governed the use, or not, of the snowblower. Swamp Yankees believe in rules. For everything. Especially eating cornbread. (“Over the sink so you don’t get the damn crumbs everywhere.”)