When October came we were hoping for snow already. It seemed like we could almost count on snow on Halloween. Snow seemed to ruin so many of my childhood Halloweens. We didn't get any snow then but in November we got a couple of inches and I was thankful it wasn't deep so I could "learn on the job". Plowing snow is an ART, trust me! You need to be able to push or pull the snow, angle inbetween parked cars, light poles, parking blocks (if you can see them and if they are covered totally by snow you better pray that your memory serves you well as to where they are located!) and whatever else might pop up in parking lots. You need to be able to look backwards and have super rotation of your torso in the vehicle. The faster you can go, the more money you can make. Well, after the first couple of snows in November I thought this was going to be a fun and easy way to earn about an extra $500.00 per month during the winter (that was a ton of money back then). I thought the shoveling part was easy as well as the plowing. Well, December 23rd had not come yet.....bit it was about to!
The weather report called for a good storm and me, my partner Jim, and my dad were all excited (he had a truck also and put a plow on it so that he could earn extra money. Back then, Julie and I had business partners, a partnership, with our best friends and they also had a truck so we had 3 trucks that we plowed with) that we could make some extra Christmas money to pay off the cridit cards when the Christmas bills came in.
We started out our normal time, somewhere around midnight. In the plowing business it is IMPOSSIBLE to plow all of your customer's lots in a couple of hrs. and you need as many accounts as possible so on a normal storm we would work from around midnight until about six in the morning. After we did our first plowing it was time for breakfast. It was now Christmas eve morning and we were talking about finishing up our last minute shopping. Us guys are notorious for last minute shopping..LOL! Well, as we ate we noticed that the snow had not let up at all from overnight. As a matter of fact it seemed like it was snowing harder and the flakes were getting bigger and the temperature was dropping. We decided that we had better plow again in the afternoon, before everyone got off of work early for Christmas Eve. By the time the afternoon rolled around it was starting to get kind of scary. I could not remember the last time it had snowed that hard. We plowed the driving areas only in the parking lots (we couldn't plow anywhere else because the cars were in the lots and we needed to just clear paths so they could get out) and the snow ahd already accumulated about a foot since the morning! Traffic was really becoming bogged down and so it was difficult to get from location to location. The snow seemed harder to push and the locations where we pushed it to were really piling up high! I began to think, "man, I hope this snow ends soon! I want to be able to finish this last run of properties and head home for Christmas Eve dinner." We finished the last run and headed home. It was still snowing to beat the band. We ate dinner and opened presents at my in-laws on Christmas Eve and we were to have dinner and Christmas at my parent's house on Christmas day..
Our son Jonathan was only one yr. old then so Julie was taking care of him while I was working plowing. After Christmas Eve dinner I was one whipped puppy because I had been up all of the previous night and all day plowing and finishing up shopping and then plowing again before dinner. I was ready for BED! Julie suggested that I set the clock for 2 or 3:00am just to be sure about the snow. Many of our properties were places that needed plowing, even on holidays. Well....I got up at 2 or 3 and looked out the window and it was STILL snowing but this time it was like a blizzard! I got on the phone and woke up my dad and my partner, I hated to wake them up but the snow was becoming so deep that if we didn't plow, it would become impossible to manage. My dad totally understood but my partner said that he wasn't going out, that the radio said only emergency and snow vehicles should go out. I told him that we were snow vehicles.He disagreed, his perceptiona of responsibility and mine were totally different and that eventually let to our business relationship break up. Anyways....my dad and I went out and Oh My God! There was around another two feet of snow in many lots! I would start plowing and by the time I had plowed about 1/4th of a lot at least another 3" of snow had built up where I had plowed previously. It was beginning to feel like a hopeless cause But if we stopped,it would be impossible to plow because of the depth and weight of the snow. Our plows were good but
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