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For the kind of work I do, the ideal relaxation takes the form of mindless physical labor. Thus I almost welcome snowfall, because it means I have to shovel the sidewalk, which allows me to ponder the job and its implications.
Local ordinance requires that the walk be cleared by 10
a.m. That may seem rather late, but early riser
and
Salidan
are not synonyms.
Once I complained to a city official that the snow-removal law was unfair. We who suffer from economic impairment live in the old parts of town where there are sidewalks which we must clear and maintain. The upper crust lives in the newer neighborhoods, which have no sidewalks.
I argued that the snow-removal law was, in effect, a tax
which the poor had to pay but the rich didn't. The city
official replied: What did you expect? We're in America,
aren't we?
Cities pass and enforce these laws, although they don't obey them.
A dozen years ago, I ventured to Denver the day after a cubit of snow. I stopped by the Straight Creek Journal, where the editor, Ron Wolf, proposed Mexican food at a nearby cantina. Midway along our three-block stroll, we encountered yard-high drifts before a vacant lot.
That's city property,
Ron explained, and the
city never clears its own walks even though it requires us
to.
So, attention Denver news media. The next blizzard, see whether the city obeys its own laws. If things haven't changed, you'll have a prize-winner about official hypocrisy.
Even if cities flout their own laws and thereby create disrespect for our political institutions, these ordinances benefit the community.
When you're shoveling the walk, you are making a direct contribution to the welfare of the community in ways that you don't when you just pay taxes and expect someone else to do the job, as is the case with plowing streets. Shoveling your walk is an act of citizenship far better than reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
When you're out there gasping and sweating, you welcome the opportunity to take a break and chat with passers-by. Thus you get to know your neighbors better.
A few are too surly to talk, though -- joggers. They run in the street, which galls me: Why go to the trouble of clearing the walk if these muscle-bound narcissists think they're too enlightened to use some pedestrian thing like a sidewalk?
Some joggers use snow-blowers to clear their own walks. They could get their exercise by doing something useful, but they don't; they demand that their exercise be non-productive. The jogger attitude probably reflects Thorstein Veblen's Theory of the Leisure Class and its disdain for anything useful, but I won't have the leisure to ponder this connection until I'm shoveling the walk after the next storm.
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