Fires and Snow
The last winter that we were together in the Bensalem house
there was a godsend of snow. Three times
that year it snowed more than two feet.
There is a delicate timing of the snow day. If it starts too early in the morning or in
the afternoon the road crews can get to work and clear the snow.
A badly manage a snow day is the beginning of the end for a
Superintendent’s job in a district. It
was an easy year for the Superintendents and each of those drastic snows gave
us not one but two days off from school!
As a teacher, I love the snow day. I get the same thrill that I felt as a school
kid, like a gift from God, like frozen white manna raining from heaven.
The day I remember best was a three foot snow fall. All traffic was paralyzed. We were sheltering with the thrill of the emergency
but we had heat and food and hot chocolate.
With the snow still falling and a bright blinding light we
made the collection of hats and gloves and boots, we kissed mama goodbye and we
went out to face the white wilderness. The
lawn was pristine without a trace of human interference.
We first shoveled our walkway to get to the street. We had three shovels and broom and Bennyboy
worked with the broom on the minivan and Ian took up shovel to take off a first
layer of snow from the walkway. There
were ice icicles hanging from the rain spouts, stalactites glistening, conical upside-down
lollipops and we broke them off and licked until our tongues were frozen.
We had several stops to make that day and the first was down
to Mr. Tomilson. Mr. T was 92 that
winter and he still shoveled his walkway.
I went down there so he wouldn't kill himself in the process and you
boys came along to explore the white wonder.
We met Mr. T’s daughter and the job of finishing his walkway
didn’t take long. Mr. T gave us hot
chocolate and we sipped it in the sun, sweating from all our clothes and
squinting our eyes from the glare as brave drivers zipped by on I-95 which
stands adjacent to the tranquility of Mr. T’s garden.
Our next stop was Mrs. Mascaloni on the corner but first we
passed the Ottenger’s house where Dave and Kathy had already cleared and salted
their walkway. Their lawn was an even
blanket of white without a trace of human activity. Everything was neat and tidy at the O’s
house.
Mrs. Mascaloni lives in a stone house that Uncle Joey helped
her husband build. Mr. M. was stone
mason and we marveled at the beauty of how his mind worked to place the stones.
When I was growing up Mr.Mascaloni had a big German Sheppard
named Max. He smelled up the small back
brick tiled patio. He was long gone but
not to Mrs. Mascaloni. Ralph’s car still
sat in the driveway. A 1979 pinto station
wagon with wood panels and rotting tires.
Ralph passed away not suddenly from cancer 12 years ago and still his
car sat as a tribute. It was a monument
as much as the house, as if one day he would return home and the engine would
turn over and he would be on his way.
People are funny with what they keep hanging around.
I have your name plates from your doors that I brought with
me to Costa Rica. Ian Patrick’s has an
elephants head and Benjamin Joseph is in the form of a bear. You are a big bear Benny. Next to my bedside as I write this there is a
small black wooden car with four metal balls glued to the bottom for weight. It has a red and yellow racing stripe from
bumper to bumper down the middle. It is
the race car than Ian made for Cub Scouts.
Your Uncle Joe is a collector, some people attach to objects
and they don’t want to let go. Uncle Joe has the original milk box that sat
outside Pop’s house when he was a boy.
That is from the time when milk was still delivered daily.
Pop was a milkman for seven years. He woke up at 1am, loaded his truck and made
his deliveries to the black neighborhoods of Philadelphia. He stopped wearing his wedding ring in those
years because once it got caught on a milk basket and he thought he would lose
his finger, so Pop looked single the rest off his life.
Uncle Joey has your Great Grandmom Murphy’s scale from her
house. I wonder if you have anything
from me?
We finished clearing Mrs. Mascaloni’s driveway and had done
all the good deeds we would do for the day.
The old people of the neighborhood had survived another storm without
falling dead in the driveway from exhaustion and we went home to drink our hot
chocolate. Mr.T, Mrs. M and the
Ottenger’s all knew me from the time of my birth.
I took great pride in travelling with my boys. In fact, when you had left with mama and I
was alone in the US, the people I visited were stunned that I was alone. More than one person said to me, “Wow, in the
four years you have been back home I have never seen you without the boys.”
I never was without you and you are still always with me.
Later in the afternoon Mama took you to see her friend
Sandy. It was an extremely rare occasion
that I was in the house alone, so I decided to use my time well. I got three different size buckets: one round and two different size rectangle
shapes.
I started the snow castle near the mailbox next to the driveway,
filling up the rectangle buckets and packing in the snow with one swipe of my
hand. With one hardy upside down shake
and a slippery “thump,” the perfect size snow bock was in place.
I had never made such a fort before in my life. The shape was 12’ by 12’ by seven feet
high. I worked for two hours on the fort
and by the time you arrived home it was getting dark and I was putting on the
finishing touches. I used the round
bucket to make a conical tower at the entrance.
There were two entrances and a secret passageway that led to
the front door that you had to crawl through.
On the top of the rounded tower I stuck Ben’s Pirate flag. Funny the things we hold onto because right
now, that pirate flags is flying outside my home here in Mexico. It flies as a symbol of my exile, that I am
not following the rules. The thing about
pirates is that most start out as law abiding sailors but through an act of the
moment they transform into an outlaw.
I made that transition when I left Costa Rica and the pirate
flag flies as testament.
It was the biggest snow fort the neighborhood had seen. It was the biggest snow fort I had ever
seen. The next day and for several days
after we were in and out and throwing snowballs and pretending to be snow
pirates, outlaws from the norm.
I am an outlaw from the norm like a pirate who feels forced
to take up the life of an outsider. I am
a pirate and the flag flies although the culmination of my efforts contradict
the symbolism…who am I? I am the guy
that shoveled old people’s driveway and made my children the biggest snow fort
that they will ever see.
I am outlawed from my children but carry their photos and
toy cars and signs from their doors.
Such is the duality of man.
God Bless my Children…
