Got a call from my neighbor this morning complaining that I had shoveled her sidewalk and brought in her trash cans and I should just stay on my own side of the street. Her husband was in the driveway chipping away at ice so I brought the trash cans up the driveway. Thought I was helping.
I did NOT shovel their walk. Someone else did (probably the neighbor on the north side; my brother lives on the south side and usually does the walk when he does his,but he’s out of town). Their entire front walk is maybe 40’ (whereas mine is 240’, so I have plenty of shoveling to do on my own side of the street). Her complaint is that shoveling takes the ‘ice melt’ she puts down off the sidewalk so that ice forms. Well, how do you shovel without going down to the cement? It is the law that sidewalks have to be shoveled within 24 hours of snow stopping. I hope she gets a ticket.
She called me in Nov and asked if I knew someone who could do their shoveling and I said I would look for someone (but I didn’t get back to her, so I felt bad about that). I would have shoveled the walk yesterday but someone had already done it.
Thought I was being a good neighbor. I have driven her to Urgent Care and picked up her husband from their driveway (literally) and driven him to the hospital or called 911. My brother has gotten calls from her to help when her husband falls (he’s not small, 300 pounds).
This crazy old person is on her own. No more shoveling, trash can pick up, rides. I called the city senior help line to get a safety check and the city said they can’t help if the people don’t want help. We’ve called her son who lives in another state. He used to come visit but I haven’t seen him for years now. She is a hoarder, keeps her house at about 10,000 degrees, and the Prime/UPS deliveries are non-stop to their house.
Some day they’ll find them dead in the house and the news will say “why didn’t the neighbors help?” I tried.
LEO son got home from his shift at 4:30 a.m., did some training with his dog until 6 a.m., had breakfast, then drove to a mountain to snowboard all day. I get that he’s young and resilient, but I’d prefer he get some sleep.
If you’re of a certain age, you recognize that the music in the Chevy Silverado commercial is the instrumental opening to I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home by Grand Funk Railroad!
Neat tune that is very different from GFR’s usual head-banging stuff. Every time it comes on it brings a smile to my face, bringing back my yoot (youth).
Saying it here to get it off my chest, please no DMs or replies:
For goodness sake, don’t let your children sled in the middle of the road. And don’t sled with them yourself.
Yes, there’s snow on the road, but cars are still driving even if you aren’t, and unless you want to see firsthand what tragedy looks like, you will think of their safety and let them get to the flippin’ hill into the park at the end of the road before lying down and becoming completely invisible to drivers.
Experienced two school shootings in my long-time community (the first one in 1997 had multiple people I know impacted) and now I’m in Nashville. In less than 2 years, we have had two school shootings here. So sad that we continue to have students exposed to these tragic occurrences. Thoughts and prayers sound nice, but expecting change without action is unrealistic. So sad, so frustrating.
If you say you are going to shovel, then shovel! Don’t do 1/4 of it and not bother to tell me it’s not done and leave me scrambling to finish before the elementary bus comes (which stops directly in front of our house). GRRRRRR! Same darn argument every time it snows.
