Tribute to a snow shovel

Once we had a snow shovel.
It was a good snow shovel, taking care of our basic snow removal needs, as it had for our parents before us. It wasn't the prettiest thing to look at, but that wasn't important to us.

Then, we went on a trip this winter. It was three weeks long. Three weeks for snow to fall and drift and get plowed over our driveway. Of course, we didn't think of things like this when we were on our trip. Then, at ten o'clock one Sunday evening, we turned onto our street and approached our house. Only then did we realize that we would not be able to get into our driveway without the help of our trusty little snow shovel.

David braved the elements and the knee-high plowed "drift" at the edge of the driveway to go into the garage and retrieve the shovel. It was when he began to chip away at the plowed pile that I realized how solid and packed down it was. It was when he began to use the snow shovel like an ax, beating the snow and ice, that I really began to wonder if we would have to leave the van parked on the street overnight... That and Elisa woke up and began to laugh at Daddy's shovel-swinging antics.

Amazingly (and thankfully) David got a section just as wide as the van cleared out and we were able to park in our garage. The poor shovel, however, was not looking so hot. It wasn't pretty to look at before, but now, I actually felt pity for it. It was sometime in the next day or so that I asked David about the possibility of buying a new snow shovel.

Our driveway was still covered in snow when David pulled the van out of the garage on his way to buy a new snow shovel. And the van got stuck. Out came the old mangled shovel. It was not helping anything. The van remained stuck. Thankfully, a neighbor who was out walking his dog was good enough to help David push the van out.

The next time I looked out the window, David had a new shovel AND an ice pick.

The poor old blue shovel was laid to rest, rather fittingly, in the snow pile at the edge of our driveway. It remained there until things thawed out a little bit, then went to the trash.

It was a good shovel while it lasted.