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Column: Snow angels the upside of piles of the white stuff

One upside about large snow falls is that snow angels appear.

One upside about large snow falls is that snow angels appear.

I’m not talking about the snow angels that little people, and once in a while big people, make in the snow with their arms and legs.

I actually love those, but I am thinking about the people who help others.

The people who, with shovel in hand, will do random acts of kindness or if they own a plowing vehicle will go beyond their own backyards.

It helps balance out the first world complaints about how slowly the city is at clearing the snow.

Could any city afford a fleet of snow removal vehicles that could clear a storm in four hours?

My friend Barb told me Tuesday evening that a neighbour plowed her driveway after the city trucks went by.

That was a good thing, she said,  because she didn’t think she could have lifted a shovel to do it herself.

A few blocks from Barb’s house an 11-year-old boy, home from school because of the snow, offered to shovel another single woman’s walk.

I was walking back to the Tribune from doing the question of the week and saw a man stuck with his small car.

I stopped and thought maybe I could help but wasn’t very effective.

Within moments five men appeared who had obviously been watching me struggle to help from their parked cars and successfully pushed him out.

On Sunday my son and I shovelled our driveway two times. When a third shovelling was necessary and we were getting ready our neighbour showed up on her ATV and plowed our driveway for us.

As we make our way through the weekend with less precipitation predicted than last weekend, I’m sure many of us will be fine tuning our snow removal.

Who knows how long our winter will be, but the recent snow fall was a reminder that we live in a place where there’s winter.

Even Mayor Walt Cobb made a video this week reminding business owners of the role they play in snow removal.

Monica Lamb-Yorski is a staff writer with the Tribune/Weekend Advisor.



Monica Lamb-Yorski

About the Author: Monica Lamb-Yorski

A B.C. gal, I was born in Alert Bay, raised in Nelson, graduated from the University of Winnipeg, and wrote my first-ever article for the Prince Rupert Daily News.
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