Friday, February 11, 2011

Just Get It Done

During our latest snowstorm, the snowplows skipped our neighborhood. This meant we had four inches of fresh powder atop five inches of packed, wet, snow. I do not own a four-wheel drive vehicle. My minivan did fine until I hit an intersection where I had to turn, at which point I lost all momentum and traction. The first time I got stuck in the road several neighbors stopped and gave me a push. The second time there was no one around. I retrieved my preschooler from his car-seat and trudged the block to our home. Snow shovel in hand I went back and freed my van. Then I spent half an hour, in seven degree weather, shoveling that intersection by hand.

There are other mothers in our neighborhood who would have to get through that intersection in order to retrieve their children from school. We have elderly neighbors. The snowplows obviously weren’t coming anytime soon.

Yes, I could have called the town or the homeowners association and complained.

I could have finished freeing my van and left everyone else to their own devices. They probably all have four wheel drive anyway.

But I wasn’t raised that way.

I was, am, a military brat. We moved quite often and always several hundred, or thousand, miles from our previous home. Despite the constant uprooting and lack of stable friendships, my brother and I were always taught the value of community. Neighbors looked out for each other. We shoveled neighbors driveways, helped the folks across the creek cut back the kudzu and poison ivy, and unloaded groceries for the young mom across the street.

We do have evidence of that same community spirit in our current area. A kind, and as yet anonymous, neighbor used his snow blower to clear all of the sidewalks on our street during a previous storm. We live so close to the local elementary school that most of our children walk to school. We watch out for those kids whose parents work and make sure they get home safe- and promptly. Every morning and afternoon four parents volunteer their time to serve as crossing guards- rain, snow, or wind we’re out there looking out for the neighborhood.

Perhaps that is why the issues of the un-plowed intersection so irritated me. Perhaps it was the fact that while I worked so hard shoveling all that snow off the road, a gentleman ten feet away was using a snow blower on his driveway and pretending to ignore my presence. I think, however, what so irked me was the fact that so many folks drove through, or pushed themselves out of, that intersection but didn’t stop to think about clearing it.

It is evidence of what I like to call the “Katrina” effect. Remember the interviews of rescued New Orleans residents following Hurricane Katrina? There were so many elderly unable to move from their homes. They, and apparently all of their able-bodied neighbors, thought the government would send someone to move them out of harm’s way. Other refugees cursed the government for not providing adequate emergency shelter or methods to escape the city. What happened to community? What happened to providing for ourselves?

When we depend on a nebulous government entity for our own safety, we are doomed as a country and as a species. We must re-develop that integral sense of self preservation and self sufficiency. We do still have the capacity to care for our community, despite the separation provided by electronic media, big-box stores, and super highways. That spark of involvement and caring must be nurtured in our children and fostered for future generations. We must ask not what our government can, must, or should, do for us. We must ask what we can do for each other without having to be told, or taxed, to do.

If the little old lady down the street is bedridden and there’s a hurricane coming, make room in your car for her. If the mother of three down the block has lost her husband in the war, make sure she has food to put on the table and someone to watch the kids. If your road is un-plowed and folks are in danger of being stranded, grab your shovel and get to work.

We’d accomplish a lot more in this country if we spent less time whining about government failures and more time working to help ourselves.

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