Young man helps with sidewalks

Dear editor:

With all the snow that we have had this year, I am getting my exercise shoveling, or in my case, sweeping (I keep thinking I will buy a snow shovel), my sidewalks, And I have a whole block to clean.

As I have been cleaning my walks I tend to think back to my days as a youth and the times I cleaned my Mom's car -- in those days we didn't have any sidewalks to clean around my house (the same house that I have come back to live in). I always felt so good when I would surprise her by cleaning off the car windows as I came back to the house from feeding the horses. She was always so pleased and thankful. It really gave me a great feeling to be able to help and to be recognized for the effort.

This year I have been watching the people in my neighborhood and noticing who does and who doesn't clean their sidewalks. I haven't noticed any young people cleaning those walks. Now I know that my immediate neighborhood doesn't have a lot of teenagers, but there are some, and I have yet to see any of them clean a walk. Just an observation! In my mind I was wondering if that was because they are all just too busy; or are clean sidewalks no longer important; or is it something that we haven't shown our youngsters how to do -- doing something for someone else that can give us so much pleasure.

Anyway, Tuesday night as I was again cleaning the latest three plus inches off my block of sidewalk, I was thinking about all of these things and wondering just how long it was going to take me to get the sidewalks swept this time. Then I noticed some strange lights at the other end of my block and realized that there was a vehicle of some kind coming down my sidewalk, cleaning the snow as it came.

When it reached me a young man quietly said "this way is much easier" and I was very quick to agree with him. This young man, Gunner (or maybe it was Gunther, sorry), had cleaned my sidewalk with his four wheeler with a blade on the front and he had done it in the time that it took me to do about 10 feet by hand.

I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was just cleaning sidewalks. I thanked him gratefully and watched as he went on down the street cleaning other sidewalks.

I hope he got a little satisfaction from the wonderful deed that he did for me, because I certainly got a lot of satisfaction out of meeting him and really thank him for cleaning my sidewalk.

Do "come back another time and I would be glad to pay you," but mostly I am just glad to have met some one out on a cold night doing something for others "just because."

Thanks again Gunner!

Janet Jo Davison