Bob Collins
Miss winter, did you?
The mild winter in flyover country might have erased just how cruddy the season can be.
So it’s worth reading the great Boston Globe columnist Billy Baker today, who tells the story of Jillian Tenen, who had the flu when the first snow of the season fell and didn’t feel like going out to shovel her car.
She’d get to it, she figured. Eventually.
Then it kept snowing.
Try as they might, nobody could seem to chisel it out of its parking space.
Her insurance company was no use; they said they could get involved only after the car was out and they could see the damage. But, of course, she could not get the car out.
She called a snow-removal company and left a message explaining her predicament. They did not call her back.
She tried a towing company, and after explaining the situation to a woman on the phone, Tenen was told it would be no problem. They’d been doing things like this all winter.
“The tow truck driver came, looked at it, and said, ‘Sorry.’ ”
When at last there came a few warmish days, she went out with an ice chopper and hacked for hours. She built stairs in the ice to get to the top of the car, and a friend helped her try to get the car out. They could not, though she was finally able to get in the door.
Surprisingly, the car started. Unsurprisingly, there was some nasty damage waiting for her inside. The windshield had collapsed under the snow and ice, and there were dents in the roof.
