Xanthippa's Chamberpot

As I have written in the past, one thing we humans do is form communities.  Yet, as we live in more and more crowded cities, we could easily become overwhelmed by just how many individuals our communities do contain.  David Wong has described this rather well in his rumination called ‘Inside The Monkey Sphere’.

Whether we are overwhelmed, or afraid of being lost in this sea of humanity, people who live in urban centres tend to isolate themselves from many of their neighbours.  The more people thrown together in one place and time, the more we tend to draw inward and isolate ourselves.

Luckily, there is another thing humans tend to do:  even if we don’t know each other, we help each other.  There is nothing like a little adversity to bring the best out in good people!  And it need not be a huge disaster, it could be as simple as a ‘little snowfall’!

Unless you have been isolated, or not interested in North American weather (well, come on, that would be far fetched…a person, speaking English, not interested in weather!?!?!?!), you have probably heard of the little snowfall we’ve had over the weekend.  Here, the sparkling, crystalline gems that are snowflake started to gently drift down from fluffy clouds on Friday afternoon….and by Sunday morning, we had received about 50 cm of them (a bit under 2 feet).  That is depth, not width…

This, in itself, would not be so terribly unusual.  However, it has followed a particularly snowy winter…before this snowstorm, we had already exceeded our usual annual snowfall by almost 50%….  so even though we appreciate its aesthetic beauty, we are all thoroughly sick of this wet annoying stuff!  Yet more shoveling…..

Which is where the ‘good neighbours’ come in:  A few of the ‘guys’ took it upon themselves to help everyone around them out!  2x during the storm, they braved the elements and ‘fought the white dragon’ (their term!), and snow-blowed the laneways of everyone up and down the street, so the snow would not get unmanageably deep.

On Sunday morning, during the calm after the snow, the 5 of them were out with their snow-blowers (and 1 with a shovel), going up and down the street, making it passable for cars to drive down. (Yes, even a neighbour with a Hummer got stuck on the street before they rescued him. It’s not that it was slippery, rather, the snow was so deep, the bottom of the car or truck would rest on the snow, and the wheels would not reach down low enough to get traction….)  Then, they went up and down the street, and cleared everyone’s laneways and walkways!

It may not sound like a lot, but it is!

We ‘had to’ go out Sunday afternoon, because the ‘Super Smash Brothers Brawl’ for the Wii had just been released….and past where our ‘good neighbours’ spread their goodwill, people were helping each other push their vehicles through the deep snow, until they got to the bigger (and thus plowed) roads.

So, to the good neighbours of our street:  Thank you!  You have not just helped shift the pesky snow, you have reminded me how good people can be to each other, just for the sake of being nice.