“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds” – motto on New York City post office
We got 20 inches of snow in Chicago between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.
Thinking I could outsmart the storm, I trudged outside a couple times Tuesday night in the midst of the blizzard and pushed a few inches of show off my driveway. I figured that would be easier to do than trying to shovel the predicted 20 inches all at once.
Thinking I had outsmarted Mother Nature, I opened my garage door Wednesday morning and found myself staring at a three-foot wall of snow that had drifted across the driveway. My little electric snow thrower wasn’t much help, so I spent much of the day digging a path wide enough to get the car from the garage to the street. Oh…my aching back!
Some people faced real difficulties. Roads closed. People were stranded in their cars. Expectant mothers were rushed to the hospital on sleds behind snowmobiles. Schools, businesses and churches couldn’t function.
I was fortunate. Other than some sore muscles, the only “problem” I encountered was being without cable television for half a day.
When the cable went blank, I called the provider to report the outage. A nice young man named Markus told me it probably was related to the weather and it would take them a little time to get everything back to normal. (In addition to the show, the wind was gusting upwards of 50 mph.) We were talking at around 10:30 p.m., and he said the crew at his office that got off at nine had all returned within an hour of leaving for their homes, having decided it was impossible to get through the snow.
Markus said he was getting off at midnight and would get home no matter how bad the storm was. He explained that his wife was expecting their first child “any time now.” I said I would pray for him, as I realized how concerned I would be in his shoes.
By Thursday morning, things were pretty much working around my neighborhood. Businesses were open, although kids were celebrating a day off from school by playing in the show. I turned on the talk radio station I listen to most mornings and heard the host complain that his home didn’t get any mail the previous day.
“Hey, I thought these people delivered the mail no matter what,” he griped.
Well…I think “no matter what” does have its limits. And this comment on the radio brought my mind back to Markus and the thousands of other people who were doing their jobs in the midst of the storm – staffing hospitals, pulling cars out of ditches, plowing roads, answering phones in emergency centers, providing shelter to the homeless.
Like the guy on the radio, I didn’t get any mail on Wednesday. But I didn’t expect to. It would have been impossible.
Delivery was back to normal Thursday. I was pulling out of my driveway as the mailman was arriving. I wished him well. Chicago has its share of everyday heroes.
