Winter Life In Buffalo

(Originally posted in NTUMC68 class website July 15, 2008)

Our friend, Long Shong, originally from Albany N.Y. said: " I don't
mind the snow if I don't need to go out, or shovel it."

He is absolutely right. But the problem is that we needed to do it !

As being a former "Buffalonian" for many years, I needed to do it and
did it very often during the winter time. It was even a much more
hard work if you needed to do it in the middle of the storm. In it's
peak, the snow blowing from the Lake Erie dropped down in Buffalo.
As our house faced north, the snow accumulated and piled up to
more than half of the height of the garage door. When this happened, I had
to get up at least 2 hours earlier than my usual getting-up time. I
noticed I was unable to open the garage door even there was power
door opener. I had to get out through the back door of the garage,
and then came to the front, practically climbing over the snow pile.
I removed the snow between the garage door and snow pile shovel by
shovel until there was an open space in between that I was able to
open the door.

I then started to shovel the snow pile on the driveway outward.
The most difficult task was to clear the snow piles or ice balls
at the end of the driveway by the street. Those snow/ice piles
had been pushed back to our driveway from the street by the city
snow plowing truck. They are hard and heavy ice balls, as big as
the basketballs. I felt like I was undergoing a good treadmill
testing. Obviously I had passed the test each time.