SHOVELING DOWN THE DRIVEWAY

TAKING RESPONSIBILITY DOSEN’T MEAN WE HAVE TO GO IT ALONE!

Getting up in the morning on a cold, frosty, wintry day is nothing less than torturous. The cocoon of warmth that our beds become during the night is a comfort not easily escaped from and a task more difficult than the alarm clock’s warning ring will allow.

But out we pop! Gosh it sucks. What’s worse is walking out the back door only to realize that Mother Nature has dumped a ton of crap on our driveways during the night.

Someone has to shovel it and it’s early! We can’t use the snow blower, if one is fortunate enough to have one, because the old man next door needs his sleep. What happens next is an early morning of shoveling down the driveway.

The only thing alive is the breath you see dancing back in you face as the first scoop of wet snow scrapes up into the belly of the shovel and doesn’t seem to want to release as you toss it over your shoulder.

It’s a big task and it has to be done. No one else will or can do it. It’s up to you and eventually it gets done. Shoveling down the driveway is a ritual of winter but more than that; a metaphor for life. We are all faced with these duties each and every day. The measure of humanity is how we face our responsibilities and whether or not we have the inner strength to measure up to our own familial obligations.

Taking care of our families, shoveling the snow, or any other task that requires attention is a barometer of every person’s character or self worth.

Most men and women who provide for their families know that they are pretty much on their own, except for the loving envelope that extended families provide one another. God bless our loved ones and the nurturing we all appreciate and in some instances, require.

Delta has told all of us for years that they are our ‘Family’ and we will be taken care of. We appreciate the rhetoric but in reality, they were not there the last time one of us had a problem with our medical bills; they did not help our fellow employees who got hurt at work and ESIS denied their claims. We don’t recall them providing council when Delta made a determination to discipline one of us.

Nope. We were ‘shoveling’ down the driveway on our own, without assistance.

The IAM is ready and willing to be that neighbor who gets up early in the morning and helps us with the heavy snow; the person who smiles and knows what a life of dedication to family and a neighborhood really means. They are used to working long hours and know that without friends and protection from the elements, life becomes a burden weighing down our shovel full of wet, morning snow; a task too difficult to bear alone.

Join us and enjoy life with friends and the calming knowledge that a contract will provide in the early, wintry mornings of a difficult season while 'shoveling down the driveway'.