Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 30, 1994 TAG: 9402010243
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Betty Strother
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
That's how thick and tough this ice was, a coat of sleet and freezing rain so heavy and tempered by plunging temperatures to such hardness that mere 46-degree days ate away at it ever so slowly.
It couldn't be vanquished fast enough for me.
There is good in the crummiest of situations, I suppose. Some people were tested and came through the ice heroically, performing acts of courage and compassion. The best I can say is that I struggled in to work every day, hardly anything to brag about. I hitched rides all week with people who have stouter hearts or better equipment, or both. "I know how to drive in this stuff," one assured me kindly. "I grew up in the Midwest." I did, too, but I didn't mention it.
The closest thing to a war story I can tell is the harrowing tale of reaching my ride that first morning after the hard freeze set in. There was this one patch of ice on the hill in front of my house that was slicker than slick - "Slick as ice!" one of my rescuers joked wryly - and, well, let's just say I regaled friends all week with descriptions of how my legs splayed out under me. I finally had to stand still, feet together, and let myself glide over, like the Flying Nun, into the waiting arms of a fellow rider. The guys really were kind of wonderful, but I was strictly comic relief.
I was feeling pretty darned good, nevertheless, that I got to work at all till my boss showed up. Alan lives out in the boonies, on a farm that has provided him and his family with countless "adventures," not the least of which is getting up and down a half-mile winding road that they call a driveway. It's hard to create much of a sense of drama about my little trek from one of the closer neighborhoods in the city when he shows up - in a good mood, no less - a mere 30 minutes late.
Worse, as the week wore on and I took to comforting myself with little wimpers as I eased over uncleared pavement, Alan mentioned that their water delivery man (they can't drink the stuff from their cistern) couldn't reach their house. They had to haul in drinking water themselves, and the bad thing, he said with a little chuckle, was that some of the big bottles had rolled against the door in the back seat of the Jeep, knocking it open and falling out. He had to go back for them. It was OK, though, because the ice was so deep and hard that the ruts in the road created sort of a rail that kept the Jeep from sliding off track and over a bank.
"So," I piped up, "do you still think it's an adventure living out there?" He paused for just a second, mustered a little grin, and said, "Yeah."
You can see what I have to put up with.
I have driven through blizzards and floods, have watched tornadoes touching down off in the distance and have inched my way along miles of ice-covered highways. I have been plenty scared all of these times, but never more than when driving on ice, fearful at each upcoming curve, willing myself to keep my foot off the brake. I hate ice.
When Saturday came, warm as promised, I eagerly grabbed a shovel and pushed the top layer of slush off the driveway, then cracked the ice underneath and tossed it, chunk by chunk, onto the grass. Then I started hacking a path up the sidewalk, occasionally sliding ever so slightly backward as I took a stand on slushy ground and whacked and cracked the ice into shards.
I worked my way up under a big tree where, sheltered from the sun, the ice remained frozen solid to the sidewalk. I jammed the blade against it in a fruitless effort to wedge it underneath; I hacked at the ice with the edge of the blade; I hammered it and jabbed at it. Only a few shavings broke loose. I threw down a little salt and worked my way up the walkway to the house. Returned to the stubborn patch and still could make no progress. Decided to give the salt more time to work and chunked every bit of ice off the front steps and stoop. The ice remained stubbornly stuck to the sidewalk under the tree.
I took a break and leaned on my shovel, and watched as the runoff from up the street cut paths through the craggy ice in the gutter. It was pretty, I had to admit, and best of all it was leaving. Then I noticed the shadows moving f+iundero the ice, as water sought out air pockets and rolled downhill. Neat. Then I noticed this same pattern on the sidewalk, only not down the middle, where I was shoveling. Over on one side, dollops of water were moving under the ice.
Every once in a while I get a practical idea, and I thought: "That water has to be loosening that ice." Eureka! I headed my shovel for that side and hacked a path around the stubborn ice and on up the rest of the sidewalk.
I never could get through that patch, but I got around it, and that was good enough. The sun couldn't quite reach it, either, but temperatures remained warm and it receded imperceptibly but steadily.
As late as Tuesday I had to skirt some patches of ice as I walked along shaded roads and pathways. But not that dang, stubborn patch. It was gone.
Hee hee!
by CNB