Hoop & Scoop

I’ve been waiting all year for the first big snow event of the season, so I could pull out this quirky little tale from 2011.  Somehow, hula hoops just seem to find me everywhere…

It was a bleak Sunday afternoon in February, and, as always, I returned home from my weekend away to find my driveway full of snow.  I made short work of the easy stuff, then began hacking away at the glowering blob of half-frozen plow poop at the end of the driveway.  The snowbanks on either side of my driveway are currently at shoulder height, so flipping the slop casually off to the side is out of the question.  I sometimes shove the more watery stuff out onto the road for the rest of the city to look after, but this requires stealth, ingenuity, and a great deal of restraint.  No, today’s job would require that I get out the big guns: The Scoop.

My snow scoop is big, blue, and precious.  I remember with fondness the day I went to Home Hardware and bought it, and the way it revolutionized my snow management technique.  My current best practice is to scoop the cold stuff down the sidewalk in front of my house, dump it in a pile, and add to the pile repeatedly, until I have a bigger pile.  Then I take out Shovel #3 (little, blue, and precious), and heroically hurl the pile onto the snowbank that is only waist high, until it, too, is shoulder high, at which time I repeat the process a few feet further west, until my lot looks like a heavily fortified gated community, and I have to start building my barricades in front of my neighbour’s house.

This whole process requires an observant and shrewd eye.  I need to operate The Scoop  while the traffic light on my corner is showing the green arrow, because during those 20 seconds or so, I have only a 30% chance of being run over by buses or transport trucks hurtling down Charlotte Street.  Then, while I wait for the next advance green, I either stand, gasping for air with only my shovel to support me, or, on my more energetic days, bound down the sidewalk to work on The Pile.  If I see pedestrians approaching from either direction at any stage in the process (especially those with strollers, skis or shopping carts), I must immediately abandon whatever phase of the process I’m engaged in and take to The Pile like a madwoman, so no one will be forced to trudge over, around, or through my monstrous deposit of brown goop.  I then lean on my shovel, beaming, while the grateful pedestrians and their gear cheerfully acknowledge my thoughtfulness in clearing a path for them.

Today, however, had a kink in it.  I was mid-Pile when I saw a guy in red approaching from the west.  I did some quick calculations and determined that there was no way I’d be able to eliminate The Pile before he arrived.  In fact, as soon as I arrived at the Pile and began working at it with Shovel #3, I’d simply be in his way.  He had no stroller, skis or shopping cart.  Just a plastic coleman lunch pail and a hula hoop.  Yes.  A hula hoop.  “This man will be able to squeeze easily past my Pile,” I assured myself.  So I leaned on my shovel and beamed cheerfully at him as he s-l-o-w-l-y made his way across my property, looking from me to the pile and back to me again.  “This isn’t good, I thought.  I have impeded his movements and violated the first principal of shoveling etiquette: Never block a stranger’s way.”  I beamed a little less certainly and waited for him to pass.  He didn’t.

He put down his lunchbox and his hula hoop, took Shovel #3, and started heaving the slop onto the snowbank.  “Oh, you don’t have to do that!” I grinned.  He didn’t reply.  Just kept shoveling.  “That’s heavy stuff!” I beamed.  Silence.  Not one for conversation, apparently.  I considered getting out Shovel #1 and helping him, but Shovel #1 is a heavy beast, meant only for more moderate accumulations, and would most likely flatten me if loaded with slush.  So I stood by, awkwardly.  I couldn’t go back to Scooping, or I’d just be adding to the Pile.  So I just watched.  Then I thanked him cheerfully (beaming), and he turned and looked at me.  “Okay, I thought.  This is it.  He’s going to regale me for expecting honest citizens to do my work for me.  Or he’s going to tell me to have a nice day.”  He did neither.  He walked another five or six steps.  I went back to my scoop.  He stopped and squatted over his lunch box.  Did he want a tip, I wondered? Is he homeless? Should I give him a bus pass, so he doesn’t have to haul his hula hoop around town on foot? What?

He finally found what he was looking for.  He stood up and handed me a business card.  “I look after a few other houses nearby.  I own a house in Lakefield.”  I wasn’t exactly sure what to say.  I thanked him (cheerfully) for the card and put it in my pocket.  I scooped and shoveled and shoveled and scooped.  I looked up and saw him heading eastward on the south side of Charlotte Street.  I wondered whether I should feel guilty, thankful, or puzzled.  As I finally finished the job and brought my implements to my garage, I saw a perfect circle pressed into my snowbank.  It was his hula hoop hole.

You know, my neighbour occasionally runs his snowblower over my driveway on days like this.  Occasionally a friend or relative has pity on me and gives me a hand, if I look mournful enough.  Usually I grunt through the process alone.  But never, ever, has a guy who I thought might be homeless shown up with a hula hoop and hucked my muck over the snowbank for me.  I googled him, and found out that he’s a rather well-educated landscaper (and editor?!), who also belongs to an international hooping group, teaches hooping classes, and recently gave hoops to his minister and a helpful saleswoman at a pet store.

I think there must be a point in this story — something about not judging people by their appearances, or about loving your neighbour, or about rethinking the fundamental principals of Snow Management.  Mostly, though, it’s just a strange story for a Sunday afternoon in February, when the world seems grey, messy, and dismal, and nothing seems to matter much.  There’s a circle in my snowbank, and a big, red hoop heading east, and that means that there’s colour and life on even the dullest of days.  Cheers.