Blue In The Face

We had snow this past Tuesday. Not a lot, but enough for some heavy duty shoveling (wet snow) and a couple passes on the roads with plows and sand/salt trucks. I went out to my back PRIVATE drive to finish up cleaning the plow-in snow from behind my truck and silently screamed. Now, in reality, they are not supposed to be plowing that drive. Nor the neighbor's connecting drive. They are not public roads or public right-of-ways. We have kept moderately silent about it realizing that our neighbors are enjoying the benefit of not having to hand shovel a very long drive. We did, if you remember, post PRIVATE DRIVE signs at each end of the back drive.

So, why was I upset? Well, the plow dug up the granite pavers all along the edge of my parking area. Even though I had placed reflectors to keep them well away from the edge. The plow driver scooped a swath well inside of my markers. THEN he managed to break off the end of the paved drive and added insult to injury by plowing up hill TOWARDS the damaged edge and removing all the broken pavement. I found several hunks of it half a block away! Add to that the enormous amount of dirt that was then scooped out with the plow and now there's a 10 inch drop at the end of the drive.

Wednesday I went to the DPW (Department of Public Works) with photos in hand. First they tried to claim that there was no pavement involved. Wrong. Then they claimed that if it was a private drive, they weren't the ones plowing it. Wrong. Then they tried to scare me by saying that if it WERE found to be private (it is) that they would no longer plow it. "Fine with me," I said. "But what about fixing the damage to private property?" The head guy made a quick phone call to his man in the field. I met him back at the house. He tried to tell me that there wasn't any pavement damaged. That it was ground asphalt filler. Wrong and I demonstrated that I could carry a large hunk of it in one piece...not ground filler. Then he said that the town really shouldn't be plowing the drive. Once again, "Fine with me!". I showed him where the drive used to end, a near four feet from it's present broken end.He assured me he'd have it fixed in the Spring. (That should be a fun experience). Meanwhile more snow is expected Tuesday, Wednesday, and maybe Thursday. By the time Winter ends, there'll be no drive left!

Maybe it won't get plowed this time!