“Faster dad, faster.” I squeal. I am sitting shotgun in his Jeep as he bamboozled a ton of snow into a mini mountain. When his plow and the snow he is pushing connect with the mountain of snow from the previous winter storm; we lunge forward with such force my little face is dangerously close to colliding with the glove box. I grant you, this is long before there were seatbelt laws in place. There is a bar just above the glovebox, I grip it with my tiny hands and hang on for dear life.
“Again.” I yell.
I can’t be that old. Maybe in the third grade. It is late into the evening after the snow storm and there are not too many drivers on the road. Our first stop is our bank. My dad carefully scrapes the lane around the drive-up window. Ever so gently he drops his plow and pushes the heavy snow away from the building. Then he shoots me his mischievous school boy smile, the one I am sure sent my grandmother over the edge a few times, and yells, “Hang on!”
We are laughing. We are whooping. We are screaming every time the jeep crashes into the heaps of snow. I am pretty sure there is concussion and whiplash damage. If my mother only knew.
We continue on to the Red Barrel Party Store, our dentist and 7-11. The excitement never stops. Our little Jeep is the little engine that could. The ant climbing up the rubber tree plant. Impact after impact, the snow is heaved higher each time we crash into it.
“Ok, time to head home.” My dad is tired. He has been up for almost twenty-four hours.
“No dad. I don’t want to go home just yet.” I cry.
“I’ll take you tomorrow morning when I head back out.” I know he will keep his promise.
That time spent with my dad was magical, the two of us and sometimes my little sisters. There was something special about going to work with my dad. He showed me that work was important and a responsibility, but if you loved what you were doing it wasn’t so bad. He loved plowing because it was dangerous and exciting. I think there was a part of him that was dangerous and he was probably just a big kid at heart. Whatever he was, he was my hero.
Chris Writes 