Reflections on the Snowfall

By Karoline Hermes

Sedona AZ (March 22, 2012) – Removing 12 inches of snow from 30 individual steps is no easy task in any State of the Union. However, we in Sedona had some special challenges this week. Monday morning a local shopkeeper was diligently pushing the snow off each one of her steps with her feet when she heard giggling from behind her. It was at that moment she realized that with every push of snow, she had been letting out a little ‘bad word’. Luckily, the gigglers were visiting from Michigan – near world-class professionals at snow removal. The shopkeeper apologized for her spicy language, and the Michigan crowd simply smiled and answered in unison, “Hey, we’ve been there”.

The Michigan crowd also added that it seemed no one in Sedona had a snow shovel, or least they had not seen one yet in their travels through the ankle-high white powder around town. And they may be correct indeed. Monday we saw Sedonans removing snow with: their boots, their shoes, their bare hands and arms, pieces of wood, fallen tree branches, indoor brooms and indoor dustpans, pieces of cardboard, and spatulas of all kinds. Yet the most creative but possibly most dangerous method was exampled by another shopkeeper, who ran an extension cord outside and melted the snow in front of his shop with a space heater.

Hey, snow is bad for business. And out here in the wilds of Arizona, it is survival of the fittest, or perhaps simply survival of the most creative.