On the morning after the most recent snow, I-29 on the northeast side of Saint Joe looked like a huge shuffleboard court. Cars and pickups lay strewn around the edges of the interstate. Most looked as if they’d simply been parked rather carelessly in the median or on the shoulder but some had rolled up onto their sides. All would stay pretty much where they were until some greater force came to move them back to a better place.

All around the city, especially on the side streets that have not been plowed, neighbors and strangers continue to help one another. Even front wheel drive and winter tires make very little difference when a car ends up “bottomed out” in the deep snow. Some times, a bit of a push is enough and sometimes it takes some digging. Sometimes, it’s going to take something more dramatic.

I wouldn’t think that any of us have never been in need of some help after a storm. An extra push, another shovel and shoulder, a length of chain, someone else to come to us in our need, our inconvenience, our disaster. Our response of help to others might be based on our empathy, spurred by remembrance of our own needs in times past or in anticipation of those in the future. It might be that we consider that it’s just the right thing to do. And it could be that it’s simply an act of appreciation for the one who came to us in our helplessness, gave us what we did not deserve and spared us from what we did deserve.

At any rate, I do know that showing love to friends, neighbors and strangers is a good thing, in and after any storm.

H. Arnett
1/12/10