Snow Delights

FTLComm - Tisdale - November 24, 2000

All of last week we were blessed with little additions of snow each night and the accumulation built up. For those who play on this school ground the snow is a delight, a toy that can be shaped or indulged in, it is white ground, background, playground. But the most heavily tread piece of real estate in Tisdale is the approaches to the Post Office were the towns people and those in surrounding areas visit each day to pick up their bills and bundles of advertising the snow has been left to form a slippery and treacherous terrain.

Were this the front sidewalk at our house you would feel a responsibility to keep it safe and look after the ease of entry for you visitors but here the Federal Government and local government assume no responsiblity and let each of us, young to old alike take our chances on surviving a passage over this trampled frozen obstacle course. Perhaps it is the gentile nature of Tisdale people that has produced this hazard but a law suit or two might be what is needed to get this cleaned up. But surely in a civilised community we need not have elderly people damage themselves getting their mail, why is the mess allowed to take place in the first place.

Earlier this week we showed an image of the town grader working its way along a street clearing the snow. Though this is a small town there are a lot of road ways and the grader is out there working this morning but it still has a lot of streets that need attention. With the warm weather yesterday and today the snow can be moved easily but left in this rough condition it will bump us around as the underlying ice layer for the rest of the winter. Beside the grader being out cleaning up streets the Town's front end loader was out touring intersections this morning with its bucket full of gravel as it operator went from stop sign to stop sign giving a liberal coat of gravel to add traction to the slipper locations. What is ironic is that cars are covered with insurance and can be repaired but hips, ankles and shoulders can be painfully injured on icy sidewalks yet half a million dollars worth of equipment and two workmen are out on the street preserving metal and letting the bones and ligaments take their chances.