Humans are not like penguins. We are not designed to walk on the ice. My father, who is in his 70’s, was walking in his hometown. The sidwalk was not cleared, and he slipped and fell on his side with a sickening cracking and terrible pain.This simple fall resulted in 6 broken ribs. He is in much pain, can hardly move, and even breathing is hard for him.
On my street, here in Brattleboro, I have noticed that again and again and again, some people clear their sidewalks, and some do not. South Main should be passable all the way from one end to the other.
Right now, there is slush, and tonight, the slush may well freeze, bumpy and slippery.
Some of us choose to walk as our preferred way to get to town. Some people who walk on the sidewalks do so because they can no longer drive. This is frequently due to age. With age comes more fragile bones, and unsteady feet. It is a recipe for pain and harm. Please check your sidewalk, and if you have a sidewalk in front of your dwelling, shovel it.
I don’t know if there is a law in Brattleboro about owners needing to keep the walkways in front of their homes clear, but law or no law, its a simply the decent thing to do and if you don’t do it, no one else will.. Besides, most of us would benefit from the exercise. So get off Facebook, or even iBrattleboro, and get shovelin ! ! ! You’lll make the world a slightly better place, even if you don’t save someone from breaking their ribs.
Thanks for writing this,
Thanks for writing this, Rolf. I commented on another ibrattleboro post about how difficult it is to get around this town in the winter. I had friends visiting earlier this week – here to look at some homes for sale in anticipation of moving here in the summer and it was almost impossible to get anywhere downtown because of the unshoveled snow piled on top of thick ice. The flashing traffic lights did not help the situation -making it even more unsafe and stressful to cross Main Street. The sidewalks on Oak street are seldom shoveled and my friends were even unable to see a couple of the houses for sale because neither the sidewalk nor driveways had been shoveled.
When there is as much snow and freezing temperatures causing icing as we’ve had this winter it prevents people -who may not be as agile as they once were – from even venturing outside. On the whole I think Brattleboro does a terrible job of making sure the sidewalks are safe and passable.
Enlist people seeking extra work to form shoveling crews?
Six broken ribs at any age must be awful. I hope your Dad recovers well.
As far as universal clearing of snow and ice from all of our sidewalks, that’s a tall order for any town or city. Since this is the first deep winter in a long time here, the town may have become lax.
But now that more of these winters are forecast maybe the town and owners can provide seasonal work to enlist the help of young people and others looking for work to form shoveling crews. (Although, I’ll bet there are liability issues to contend with…)
As it is, in Brattleboro, for people who are 55 and older, about 20% are males, and 30% are females. That’s a pretty good size of an older population who might not be fit to labor with shoveling.
and the other 50%
Vidda, I take it you are using the new facebook categories to account for the other 50% of the population? While I support facebook’s move on gender identification (about the only thing I’m proud of facebook for), I think it is fair to say that probably more than than 20% of those over 55 are male and 30% female! Just had to tease a little on this. I do not intend to be mean-spirited here, so I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended! And next time I make a typo or some other boo-boo, please feel free to return the favor!
Seriously, I agree with your general point — and am also wondering if students who have a snow day could do the work as part of their community service. Maybe even if they don’t have a snow day. Society works when we honor our rights AND responsibilities to contribute.
The town already plows the sidewalks
The town already plows the sidewalks on some of the most car travelled roads.
Which is amazing.
But it is not sufficient.
People, property owners should be responsible for removing the rest whether that involves hiring someone, or doing it themselves.
They should do it, because it is the right thing to do. Some folks just let the ice accumulate, and put no effort to putting down sand in front of their house. I think they just don’t understand the importance of a safe walk way, especially to the elderly pedestrians who have to walk either on the sidewalk, or in the road. On South Main, I have seen old people walking in the fog, in the lane of traffic, when the snow is piled high on the margins, and the sidewalks are slippery.