A little neighborly snow removal...
....from around the world to next door.
WATERLOO — Little acts of kindness, taken in their full context, can be miracles.
I had one happen this week.
I trudged out in my winter gear on a cold dark predawn morning to the clear the snow off my driveway.
It was already done.
My neighbor did it.
I knew he’d been out there. I got up at 1:30 in the morning to check a door lock and heard a noise. Being half awake, I thought it was the refrigerator or my water heater.
Nope. It was my neighbor shoveling. He works a late shift at the Tyson meat plant here in Waterloo. It was about the time he’d get off work.
I thought, oh good, the snow’s stopped, and I’ll hit it in the morning. But when I went out he’d already hit the driveway for me.
He did my driveway, his, and a fourth of the alley we share.
This is one hard working guy. So is is wife. I know. After one snow a couple of years ago, when the fellow who plows the alley couldn’t make it, he, his wife and I shoveled the whole alley by ourselves.
We generally mind our own business but help each other out when we can. On Sunday, after Saturday’s ice storm I went out with my dad’s old ice chopper and scraped the ice off both our sidewalks.
We’ll take in each others’ garbage cans after the city picks up our trash, depending on who’s home from work first.
A few years ago, when their kids were little, I gave them a tricycle my kids used when they were little.
I get a big kick out of their kids playing out in the yard. A couple of them used to call me “Papa” when they were little but they either grew out of it or the folks told them no, I really wasn’t their grandpa.
They were playing out in the snow one day a few years ago, and the oldest came up to me and said, “Do you like my snow angel?”
He used to ask me all kinds of questions about my house.
”Whose room is that?” he asked, pointing at a window.
“That’s was my daughter’s but she’s all grown up now,” I said.
When I told him how old my kids were he said, “Woooooah! Are you 30?”
”Yeah. Times two,” I said.
Another time, he gave me the following interrogatory:
”What year were you seven?” he asked.
”1964,” I said.
“How old were you in 1977?”
”Twenty,”
”You were 20 when Nickelodeon started?”
“Yeah, my kids watched it all the time,”
”Did you have a VCR?”
”Yes.
”Was it noisy?”
”Not at first.”
”Did you have a Sacajawea coin?”
”Yes.”
“Two?”
”Yes.”
”My mom was born the year Sacajawea coins were made.”
And so on.
I’ve lived in the same place 29 years and I’ve had two great sets of next-door neighbors. These are the second.
They are Burmese — Karenni Burmese.
They can’t go back there.
This is their home now.
And I’m blessed to have them as neighbors.
We’re all on a journey. I came to the place I live in after a divorce. They came to their home to escape repression on the other side of the world.
A lot can seem like a little and a little can seem like a lot. I think the latter is the case for us. We’re grateful for what we have.
And when I think of where these folks have been, for them to take the time to do little things for me like clean my driveway…well, it’s pretty humbling when you think of the people the good Lord puts in your path to brighten your way — from the other side of the world, to right next door.
Pat Kinney is a freelance writer and former longtime news staffer with the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier and, prior to that, several years at the Ames Tribune. He is currently an oral historian with the Grout Museum District in Waterloo. His “View from the Cedar Valley” column is part of “Iowa Writers Collaborative,” a collection of news and opinion writers from around the state who previously and currently work with a host of Iowa newspapers, news organizations and other publications. They are listed below. Clink on the links to check them out, subscribe for free - and, if you believe in the value of quality journalism, support this column and/or any of theirs with a paid subscription .
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