This is unprecedented. We have another snow day! I actually checked early this morning, before getting all ready for work, and then I went back to bed for a couple of hours. Now that's unprecedented. I must have needed sleep.Tuesdays have now been designated "date nights" for me and Mr. Ether. (After 20+ years of marriage, one kid out of the house and the other kid only one year away from being a teenager, are we finally getting it together to have "dates"? Don't hold your breath.) Last night, because we're broke and because we had delicious key lime pie in the fridge, left over from Sparkly's birthday on Sunday, we decided to really kick up our heels and walk to the food co-op for our date. Whoo-ee, do we know how to have a good time or what?
But actually, it was a lovely walk. The snow was starting to come down, and the route leads us along a river and then on a bike path. We bought some essentials, and headed home. We got to a place where one bike path intersects another, and heard a plaintive cry for help. There was a man in a motorized wheelchair, stuck in a snowbank. He had his phone out and had called 911, in fact had the dispatcher on the line, but his disability (cerebral palsy?) made it difficult to understand him when he told her where he was. She was assuming he was drunk, which he wasn't.
Mr. Ether recently threw out his back, so he was wary of trying to push/lift the chair out. I was wary of dumping the man out of his chair. (I did that to my kids with the stroller on more than one occasion.) The dispatcher said she would send a patrol car, so Mr. Ether went to wait at the corner where he would be visible, while I waited with the man.
Nice guy. He was only a block from home, but had mistakenly assumed that he could get through in a place which hadn't been shoveled. It looked like he had been doing the same thing we were doing, making a run to the co-op for some essentials before the storm came. (Of course, we were on a date.)
The police showed up after about 10 minutes. During that time he and I managed to get the wheelchair out of the trench he had dug by spinning the wheels, and turned around, but there was still another small snowbank. With a steady push from the youthful and brawny officer, plus the bulldog-like power of the motorized chair (they are like little ATVs, which is probably how he got so stuck in the first place) he was back on the bike path.
We carried his bag of groceries and followed him home. Afterwards, Mr. Ether and I were reflecting on the whole scene: how good it is to live where so much is within walking distance, how hard it must be to be disabled and alone (especially once you're older and perhaps don't have parents anymore,) how we love the winter but it is hard for some people who can't get around as easily, how we live close by two different accessible housing developments and there are people we've just seen around for years and years without ever having met them, how it felt good to help ...
It was a very good date!
(Late afternoon update: The snow is still falling and is now up to the bottom of the car and completely covering the little angel pictured above. Everything has shut down -- buses, public buildings, university classes ...)
