Snow Shovelers Ready To Rise Up Against Machine

There’s a cold revolution about to burst over the region like an ice dam on a swollen river.

If we don’t get a heat wave soon - if that insufferable white stuff doesn’t stop tormenting us - I’m afraid my frostbitten fellow snow shovelers will take up their cheap, dented aluminum blades and strike a blow against the snow-blowing aristocracy.

You know what these smug, Toro-toting fat cats will discover then? “You can’t really pick up a snow blower and defend yourself,” says Ron Cramer, gripping his shovel menacingly and adding a wicked chuckle.

Following Fidel Castro’s example in Cuba, I am building an army of ragtag shovelers to one day lead into battle against the blower-owning aristocracy.

That’s because nothing is so heartless as hearing the flatulent rumble of a neighbor’s 10-horse snow chomper while you’re hacking away at your sidewalk with a flimsy pie pan stuck to a handle.

Sometimes these haughty snow blow-hards will give you a cheery wave as they finish their 10-minute cruise around the exact perimeter of their yards, careful never to stray a millimeter beyond their property lines.

And there you stand, quivering with a throbbing case of blower envy while they lock The Club onto their macho machines and head inside for some caviar and a nap.

I found Ron on the corner of 12th and Adams during my Friday trek to rally the blower-impaired masses.

The out-of-work house painter will make a fine generalissimo in my Shovel Brigade. He’d been slaving two hours with a grain scooper, trying to carve a pathetic niche on the street for his car.

“I’ve learned something out here,” he tells me, his breath huffing white plumes in the frosty, joyless air.

“It’s very important that children get a good education so they can grow up and find a job that will pay them enough money to BUY A SNOW BLOWER!”

It’s an age-old story, this eternal struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

Few scholars know that the Russian Revolution of 1917 was actually triggered because the czars had all the snow blowers. Meanwhile, jealous peasants were forced to clear the cobblestone walkways with twig brooms.

Everyone knows how much snow piles up during those glacial-paced Russian winters, which only added to the general discontent.

So to echo Karl Marx, the father of communism:

“Shovelers of All Lands Unite!” When we do, I know I can count on the five snow shovelers I found on the short block of Montgomery between Post and Wall.

One of them, Howard Hannon, had been out five hours clearing the sidewalks and driveways of his mother’s home and those of a neighbor’s. He even removed the small mountain of snow left in the intersection when city plows cleaned Post.

No blower for this shoveling dynamo. He didn’t even have gloves. “Doing it with a blower is cheating,” he says. “You don’t get any exercise that way.”

Of course, not everyone with a snow blower is a selfish weasel.

A precious few, like Don, my neighbor and former Scoutmaster, are Snowmaritans who believe owning an expensive machine carries a social responsibility.

Every year around Christmas, Don gets full of the holiday spirit and starts blowing the sidewalk of the entire block.

His wonderful act of generosity, alas, is about to end like an avalanche over a sleeping village. Don told my wife he is leaving his teeth-chattering friends after New Year’s Eve to go bask in sunny Arizona.

Don may have to be shot for this act of desertion.

But before we come to that, Gen. Ron Cramer offers two bits of advice on proper winter sidewalk maintenance:

“Shovelers always should lift with their legs so as not to hurt their backs,” he says. “And those with snow blowers should always try to avoid hitting the curb so they don’t spill their cappuccinos.”

Viva la Revolucion!

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo