ABOUT A WEEK after a superblizzard roared through earlier this month, I awoke again, as most people around Boston did, to howling wind and swirling snow. The first thing I did was look out for our neighbor. There is always at least one neighbor whose approach to shoveling is more than efficient and closer to maniacal. It’s beyond traffic-cone-and-lawn-chair maniacal. It’s grab-your-hot-chocolate-and-pull-up-a-chair-’cause-this-is-more-interesting-than-Facebook maniacal.
I do not know this neighbor. Our apartment complex is large and provides a lot of temporary housing for corporations. While everyone is friendly, not everyone stays long enough to forge the kinds of bonds the term “neighbor” evokes.
Comments
Methinks the author is lying about her age. The blizzard of 1978 was 35 years ago, and even if she is 39 now she would have been barely 5 (and more likely 4) when the blizzard hit.
No child of that age has that detailed a memory 35 years later. It makes one wonder what else in this piece is fictionalized.
This comment has been removed.
This comment has been removed.
"It makes one wonder what else in this piece is fictionalized." Perhaps the part about taking all day to shovel out a couple of cars and creating 5-foot banks in the process? This piece is, to be kind, weak.
I think the difference is the big apartment complex that has so many temporary residents. First, the bigger the pool of people, the higher the odds you get a sociopath like ski mask lady. Second, the more transient the population, as the author says, the less likely it is that a sense of community prevails.
If anecdotes are allowed as evidence, then how about my parents' neighbor who got a new snow blower and cleared snow not only from his own home but from my parents' house and another elderly couple's home? How about my own neighborhood that was full of neighbors-helping-neighbors dig out?
I think if other tenants got out and offered her some help (With her cars and others ) instead of just watching and criticizing the whole problem could have been avoided and new "neighbor" friends made. I also agree about the Blizzard of "78 references. My daughter was 2 1/2 yo at the time and remembers none of it.
This comment has been removed.
Ms. Greenidge, you are invited to visit my neighborhood in North Dorchester, near South Boston. Here you will find plenty of helpful, friendly people who look out for each other. You will be pleasantly surprised.
To give the 38-year-old author the benefit of the doubt, she is no doubt "remembering" the legends of '78 told by her family and older friends incessantly over the years. But if she was THAT upset with Ski Mask, and was so concerned about neighborliness, why stare out the window all day gawking? Why not go out and have a chat about the questionable behavior? No, the modern way is just to type a lot and think you're accomplishing something. To give Ski Mask the benefit of the doubt, perhaps she grew up in California and just didn't know any better.
I actually had the opposite experience. I live on a street made up of mostly houses with apartments, and a few owner-lived in houses. My older neighbors invited me over for lunch. I helped them shovel. Other neighbors helped me shovel, and one helped me push my car to get it on its way. I'm glad I got to know who lives around me a little better.
I shoveled my sidewalk and hydrant, then helped some neighbors shovel out their car. The next morning, they'd shoveled me out before I even got outside!
Then a day or two later, a guy was digging his car out and throwing his snow on my sidewalk and hydrant. At first I angrily asked him not to do that, but then I turned around and just helped re-dig out the hydrant and helped him shovel his car out. Only regret was not making more of an effort to meet him. Hopefully the example will pay off next time.
I understand the author's thinking face-mask lady is rude, but the best approach (for the neighbor as well as her kids) would have been to go help her, including helping to move the snow to a better location.
Clarification: I shoveled my sidewalk and hydrant, then helped some neighbors shovel out their car. The next morning, they'd shoveled **MY CAR** out before I even got outside!
After I shovel out our house I dig out the driveway of the old lady who lives across the street, unless her nextdoor neighbor gets to her first. I don't do the whole driveway, she has a plow guy anyway, but I dig out the logjam left by the town snowplows at the end of the driveway, and I dig out her mailbox so she gets her mail. She's in her 80s and her husband is dead. I'm 59 but I'm pretty spry, it's no big deal.
I don't help anyone anymore.
I used to, when I lived in the midwest. Have a snowblower, several young couples had bought new houses, both parents worked all day, I am retired. They were obviously a bit strapped for cash, snow blower-wise. So what the heck, help them out. After that, whenever I was doing something in the yard, the guys would come over to see if I needed a hand, or just wander over when I was out to offer a beer or three.
Moved to Massachusetts. Did the same for my neighbor next door. Following summer, he was blasting his stereo loud enough we could hear it over our TV. The houses are NOT close together. Walked over, explained to him nicely what the situation was, he was working in the yard. At that point, I got some BS rap about his RIGHTS, blah, blah, blah. Other neighbor I helped, never even said thanks.
Yup, you folks have earned your nationwide reputation.
Hope that Kirsten Greenidge includes the Ski Mask character along with her memories & impressions of snow storms in an upcoming play. She's right on target re. good neighbors. Thankfully folks on our South End street still watch out for each other. Maybe not cookies, but kind words, smiles, & no chairs in dug-out spaces.
Are you kidding me? Ski Mask would shovel me in ONCE! I lived with goofballs like that for ten years. Every time it snows I am SO GRATEFULL that I do not have to go through the "snow wars" ever again. I moved out of the city.