Faith Restored, Path Plowed

I just want to send out an enormous THANK YOU to Kelly, the man who lives across the street from me for his help this morning.

Let me set the scene for you: we received at least six inches (I say more like 10, but I've never been good at guesstimation) of snow in the last couple days. I parked my car on the street (because our apartment's lot is always a horrible, un-scooped mess), thinking it would be easier to dig myself out from there. When the city cleared the streets, however, they barricaded my car with drifts reaching high enough that I was unable to open my car door. I knew this was going to happen, so this morning I bundled up, grabbed my scoop shovel, and was fully prepared to spend at least 20 minutes digging out my car. After 10 minutes of scooping (and not making as much progress as I had hoped for), I called into work, warning them I would be late, and dutifully returned to my shoveling.

As I was toiling away with my over-sized plastic snow shovel, I noticed the garage door on the house across from me raise. I expected to see a clean car come rolling into my peripheral vision shortly thereafter, but instead, a man appeared with a metal shovel & offered to help me in my efforts. I adamantly accepted, thanked him, we exchanged introductions (Kelly & Shelly, always a good sign! haha :)), and started shoveling. After a moment of surveying the light and fluffy snow, Kelly decided to fetch his snow-blower. In no time at all, he cleared a perfect path for my car to glide onto the street (after a little pushing, also done out of the goodness of his heart!).

Seriously, this guy was the definition of a Good Samaritan! He could have walked away at any moment, said he was sorry but he was going to be late for work, or done a little scooping & wished me good luck, but instead he stood by, shoveled, used up the last bit of gas in his snow blower, pushed my car out, and refused to accept any kind of payment! I thanked him over and over and over again, and I still wish I could have done more (at least paid him to refill the gas tank on his snow blower!). If I were having any doubts about the neighborliness of people these days, this one act aptly put an end to it. It is very refreshing to know that there are still people out there who will take time out of their own schedule to help a stranger.

So, once again, thank you, Kelly-from-across-the-street! I hope I can return the favor someday :)