On my snowshoe down to the mailbox, today, I saw four vehicles stuck: which is really amazing considering the few people who live on my road. Someone called a road grader to get everyone unstuck and plow the road. Even though I’m not using the road, I’ll put some money in, just to be neighborly. As I tromped on by, in my snow shoes, past all the stuck people, I felt very mobile. One person stuck was a nice neighbor and I stopped and chatted.
One of the stuck neighbors was a woman who last winter, when I was trying to hitch-hike out to go on a snow camping trip, wouldn’t give me a ride; I was hitch-hiking on the same sparsely populated road that we both live on! In the middle of winter! With a cold wind blowing! She didn’t wave or smile or anything, she never does.
Another of the people stuck was a fellow I speak to, sometimes, while waiting for the mail to come. He is forty years old and resentful that the local high school didn’t give him a diploma even though he stayed an extra year. He has a rubber cactus wearing a small pair of sunglasses, speared through his antenna. He’s usually friendly, but he seems always to be preoccupied by some slight the world has handed him, like once, he was upset about a catalog not coming; not just disappointed: upset, like maybe there was some sort of conspiracy afoot, keeping him from his catalog.
The final person, who was stuck, was this guy who several years earlier, suffered a regrettable episode of unneighborliness and waited in his neighbor’s house with a loaded gun. He went to prison for awhile but he’s back now. When I walked past him, he said, “Are we having fun, yet?”. That’s the first time he has ever talked to me. The funny thing is that the guy that hired the grader that will get him unstuck is the very neighbor he threatened to kill. I kind of wanted to hang out and see if he would get him out or just plow his car out of the way.
