OPINION: A shovel and some gumption

Lou DeCaro lives in Wading River.

Maybe it's just me, but this winter reminds me of the ones we had many years ago on Long Island. We've already had a blizzard, and it now seems to snow, at least a little, every other day.

At 58, I could do without it. But I must admit I still enjoy taking pictures after a snowstorm, and I even paint snowscapes on occasion. But my perspective was very different when I was a child.

I remembered the difference a couple weeks ago as I prepared to shovel nature's latest installment. As I grabbed my snow shovel and started to open my garage door, I imagined myself as a child once again. I saw myself looking out of my bedroom window as an 11-year-old, seeing the snow that had fallen the night before. I heard my mother say school was canceled and decided to take advantage of the situation.

Money, I was told, was hidden in snow.

So I got dressed, grabbed my father's shovel and started clearing driveways in my neighborhood.

The first house I went to was diagonally across the street from ours. The owner gave me his nod of approval from a window even before I made it halfway up his driveway. Time was money, so I shoveled his driveway as fast as I could.

After he paid me, I quickly made my way to the next house. I wanted to stay ahead of the competition, so I shoveled, chipped and scraped my way through the neighborhood as quickly as my body would allow me. Several hours later, I was too exhausted to continue. I had shoveled eight driveways and earned a total of eight dollars. I was rich.

My sentimental journey abruptly ended when I opened my garage door. No one was there waiting for me to give a nod of approval like the one I got many years ago. And while I would have been glad to pay considerably more for the service, I realized times had changed; money isn't hidden in snow like it was 47 years ago.

So, I did the next best thing: I rested my shovel against the garage wall, closed the door and decided to wait for nature to remove what she had left behind.

At least I knew she wouldn't charge me a dollar.