Before I lived in Denver, I lived in Jersey City, NJ from 1999-2000. A city surrounded by other cities and water, it was a small area ( about 21 square miles) an a large populations (240,000 at that time). When I moved to Denver, a city about eight times larger in land with a population only about 2.5 times larger, I really did feel like it was one big wide open space after the density of Jersey City, really an urban suburb of New York City. It was quite an experience living there with so many people....row houses, towering apartment/condo buildings, awesome public transportation (I knew a lot of adults who didn't know how to drive a car because they never needed one), and incomparable diversity. Comparatively, our property, if it were in Jersey City, would be home to about 660 people.
Winter on the East Coast was different than anywhere else I have lived because fallen snow didn't usually go anywhere. Plowed snow could last for months. The sun didn't just pop back out. Once the curb was covered, it stayed covered, all the while getting nastier and nastier. Lots of little apartment dogs and big house dogs would do their business where the grass or curb used to be, and given the snowy conditions, owners rarely picked up after their pets. That is nasty to see each time to you walk up or down the street on the way to the bus or the PATH train or the little corner market. Gross!!
So I recall this story with humor. I left the house just past 7 am this morning to catch a ride with Marie and the kids in to town. (My car was already in town.) Thomas asked incredulously if I was walking. Even though it was in the single digits, I was bundled to walk - usually down our drive, down our road, and at least the distance of our property towards the Salas house. Marie picks me up somewhere along the highway usually, as it is too cold to stand in place and wait and I don't want to keep her waiting for me.
Thomas hopped in his truck while it warmed up, and I made my way through the snow. It was really easy to do because Pop came over yesterday and bladed the drive again, but all the same I wore my big boots and not my clogs. When I turned down the road, which has now been covered with snow for over a week, I came across a little patch of yellow snow. Scattered by the wind, there were rabbit pellets in all directions. Such a sight had me laughing this morning as I remembered walking past the nasty snow on my way to work eleven years ago. Oh, the nostalgia and laughter in the little things is what really matters...
No comments:
Post a Comment