One of the great secrets of our age is that the people and things that really make modern life work are often the people and things most citizens pay the least amount of attention too. As long as things are going well, these matters don’t get much discussion.
A good cross section of the American public learned this the hard way when the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020 underscored just how important retail workers and delivery drivers really are. It was bad enough as it was, but it could have been so much worse if nobody showed up to stock the shelves or deliver the packages.
We were reminded of essential workers this week as we dig out from yet another snow calamity.
Most of us got up on Tuesday and went to work without a second thought, enjoying the cleared streets and plowed roads that a small army of public and private contractors put to right in the late afternoon and evening hours Monday.
Most of us don’t think about snowplowing until annual town meeting when the bill comes in, if then, but it’s hard job and it requires quite a bit of skill to do it right.
Here, we take a moment to thank all of the snowplow drivers who have done their bit this winter, from state and municipal employees to the hired contractors and the individuals clearing out driveways and businesses one at a time with their plows.
We don’t say it enough, but we appreciate the work you do and we appreciate you. Some years are more involved with snow removal than others, and this one seems to be on the heavier side.
It has been a long hard winter and we hope to see the end of it coming soon. The time of year to put away our snow shovels until next year should be on the horizon, but with Maine’s famously fickle weather, your guess is as good as ours.
We still have mud season and black fly season coming before summer, even with those options, we are ready for the change. Let’s go.
