Why I Shovel Snow

I live in Western New York. Every winter we get a couple of snowstorms, sometimes with significant snowfalls. After every storm, I go out and shovel the driveway. If there's enough snow, I use a small electric snowblower my daughters gave me for Christmas a few years back.

Every time I go out to shovel, my wife frets. I'm an older fellow, and she worries I will have a heart attack. She keeps pushing me to hire a plowing service.

I know she's motivated in part by love for me. I also know that she's a worrier - she almost always assumes the worst will happen. 

Me? I'm stubborn.

The issue came up Monday. We got a storm with more than a foot of snow - some estimates run to 18 inches. So I dutifully went out to shovel and snowblow; she took the picture above as I did so, and posted it on social media.

Here posting led to a joking exchange with a friend, and the issue of hiring a plowing service came up (he gets his driveway plowed)i. They both noted my Scottish heritage as among the reasons I refuse to hire a plowing service - she talking about the snow-covered Highlands, he suggesting the alleged frugality of the Scottish.

Humph.

There are many reasons why I prefer to shovel and not to hire - and none of them have anything to do with frugality.

Here's a few reasons:. 

1. I lead a relatively sedentary life. Shoveling snow, mowing the lawn (another activity that raises the wife's eyebrow) and long daily walks with the dog are my chief forms of exercise. 

2. I view shoveling snow as a "manly" activity. In a society intent on emasculating men, I consider attempts to get me to stop as part of that emasculation, and my continuing to shovel as a kind of "barbaric yawp"!  

3. I'm on the older side. But as long as I can shovel,  I will do so. Hiring someone to plow (or mow),  will signal that I have officially become old. 

4. Pride (see 3)

5. I'm independent. I don't like relying on others to do things that I'm perfectly capable of doing. So when the car breaks down, or my tooth hurts, or the roof leaks, I'll seek out professionals. But shoveling snow? Bah. I can do that.  

6. I'm a cranky contrarian. Telling me to do something - especially if you do so repeatedly - inspires me not to comply. (I respond better when something is suggested once, valid reasons are given, and then I'm left alone to think about it.)

7. I use the time shoveling (or mowing or walking) to think, to pray, to work on something I'm writing, to take in nature, etc.

8. As the friend suggested: I like it. I enjoy it. I relish it. I take pleasure in it. I dig it (literally).So telling me not to do it is telling me to stop doing something that brings joy to my life.

What next? Give up popcorn? Beer? Haiku and clerihews? The Buffalo Bills??? 

Okay, so it does save money. But that's just a secondary benefit . 

Pax et bonum