NY Upstate Winter Wheel of Death

So, for those of you that don't know - it snows a lot in upstate New York. Sure, we don't break world snow records or anything like that, but we get more than our share. Over 100 inches a season isn't out of the ordinary at all.

Anyway, a couple of events took place the past couple of weeks that would make even the most avid skier question Rochester, NY as an enjoyable place to live.

I was leaving from my overnight shift at my job. Unfortunately, it was during the time where all it did was snow. I'm not sure what the official total was, but 15-20 inches over the course of 2 or 3 days seems close. The driveway and parking area I parked in needed to be plowed; so the guy was there is his monster truck and plow. Waiting for me to move, so he could plow where I was, he parked in a spot and I moved. Since I needed to let the car warm up and wrap up a couple things, I went back inside for a couple minutes.

When I came back out, the plow guy was talking to a staff that had just arrived. I got into my car, looked behind me to make sure the plow wasn't backing up (so that I wouldn't back into him) and saw he was still for a good few seconds. Figuring he saw that I was leaving, I proceeded to back up and go home. Just as I near his truck in backing out, I see him backing up quickly. There's nothing to be done - I was about to be hit, driver side door, but a large plow truck backing up fairly rapidly. I couldn't stop to save myself, I couldn’t speed up - all I could do was brace myself. When I noticed him, the truck was not more than 6 feet away and didn't have its brake lights on. I leaned as far as I could over to the passenger side of the car and braced myself.

After about 2 or 3 seconds, I realized the impact hadn't taken place. I cautiously looked over my shoulder towards my left. Not more than an inch from my driver side mirror is the very large, very intimidating, bumper of the plow. All I could do was thank my stars and finish backing out. As I pulled away, I honked to the plow guy to let him know that, in fact, he did not kill me by collision or heart attack. I noticed the staff that had been talking with him walking back into the house. I found out later that it was a combination of her eyes widening as she saw what was about to happen and the plow guy catching me out of the corner of his eye, that made him hit the brakes. For the life of me, I still can't figure out how he stopped so quickly, but I'll leave my fortunes to God and be happy to carry on in ignorant bliss if it means my survival. ;)

So, what was the other item? A couple of days ago, my girlfriend and I woke up to our roof leaking, somewhat steadily, into the corner of our bedroom. Great. I go outside and look up and, sure enough, there is a pile of ice and snow that had built up from the previous weeks storms and melted down to the edges of the roof. As a result, a nice size ice dam had built up that was stopping the rest of the water from rolling off of the roof.

It took me a day to be able to borrow my father's longer ladder. I wasn't able to use it until late afternoon. I went up to the edge and looked. Sure, enough, about 6 inches of solid ice lay about a foot back into the roof all along the front and sides of the house. There was nothing to do but get to work. So I began hacking away with a hammer and shoveling what loose snow I could. The whole process took me about two hours - in the cold, in the dark, soaked through, sitting up on the edge of roof full of ice. Forget the physical labor of it all, that wasn't so bad. I can remember three distinct times in which I nearly lost my footing to the point of landing on my back and potentially sliding right off of the roof. There were countless other times where I slipped here and there, who know how close to losing full control I was. Suffice to say, this wasn't a pleasant time.

So, other than reinforcing my desire to not own a home, last night and a couple of weeks ago got me to thinking a couple of other things. The first is how much I dislike winter - especially this year. I've never really minded it when the shoveling and plowing was done for me (i.e. living in an apartment), but with all the snow we have had lately and just the general disposition of people due to the weather, I've lost most of whatever taste for winter I have had. Fortunately, I don't think I'll see too many of these upstate winters down the road.

The second thing was how close we can all come to death through the course of our everyday lives. Two different occasions recently I was in jeopardy of being seriously injured or maybe even killed. If things turned out a few inches different here or there, my life could have been significantly changed. Who knows what the Monster Plow of Death could have done to me? Who knows what a fall from a second story roof would have done to me?

I know we all have these realizations throughout our lives. Heck, we all have near-death experiences from which we are forced to realize just how mortal we are. Still, with two so close together, I couldn't help but think I was being forced to realize how mortal I am. I can't say why this would be the case; I am most likely just attempting to connect two stressful events in a way that is more than coincidence. But, when you live in the doldrums of Upstate New York - with the winds blowing temperatures to feel below zero, the snow threatening to bury you into your homes, and the clouds always graying the skies to the point of depression, I don't think you can blame me for looking for a ray of clarity on NY's Upstate Winter Wheel of Death.