ART
Uneven Sidewalks
We are living today in the aftermath of a heavy snow.
Outside my front door, six inches of snow greet me this morning. As I step gingerly into the fluff (in slippers) to retrieve my morning paper, I say to myself “This will have to be shoveled.” Will I do it myself, or wait for a kid on the block to come by and volunteer to do it for me (and cash)?
Sidewalks in a city of Chicago’s size are pedestrian pathways designed to keep people out of the streets. In the winter, sidewalks give pedestrians the edge because the side streets, especially those that don’t carry commuters through neighborhoods, rarely get plowed.
In recognition of the importance of keeping the walkways open in winter -- if only to get down to the corner store for milk and diapers -- Chicago imposes a $50 fine on homeowners who do not “create a proper pathway” in front of their home. The ordinance is rarely enforced, but sets a tone for civic responsibility that homeowners are expected to take seriously.
On my block, the 2300 block of Medill Avenue in Bucktown, I walk every day down to Pepe’s and marvel at the pathways my neighhbors have cleared.
Some are large and wide, an edge-to-edge sweeping of snow off the concrete. Others are no more than a pathway, a shovel-wide acceptance of civic responsibility. A few, but only a few, are not shoveled at all.
In the shovelways in front of their houses, I judge my neighbors. I know one is 78 years old and retired, but he is the first to shovel. The bank executive down the street is out of town, so I excuse his malfeasance. A neighbor down the way has just bought a snowblower, so I applaud his exuberance in clearing his -- and both his neighbors' -- sidewalks.
But as I look at the overall pattern of sidewalk clearing in the snow, I see tidiness next to sloth, exuberance and isolation, knitted together into a mosaic of the citizenry. And somehow it all works because somehow, every time it snows, there is a pathway to the corner.
In the uneven clearing of sidewalk snow, we discover little things about our neighbors, and ourselves, that stay with us throughout the year.