FEBRUARY 25, 2026 – By the time I’d assembled myself for breakfast yesterday morning, I was feeling significantly better. Maybe not quite airworthy, but with two days to go before our postponed departure from southern New England, I was optimistic. In the afternoon, I actually got outside and did some light shoveling to help “widen the driveway” at strategic curves and corners.
As it turned out, however, I spoke too soon. By bedtime, I was hacking up a veritable storm. After a night of on-again, off-again sleep—much of it filled with fitful dreams—I awoke feeling okay except when I viewed what just a few gentle rounds of blowing my nose . . . enough, already! When I simply began to describe in the most general terms . . . my wife said, “Maybe it was because you watched Trump’s speech last night.” She added nonchalantly that when our oldest son was a toddler and experienced the same horror film episode I’d just begun to describe, she was “afraid his brains were coming out and called the doctor.”
Her reaction to my distress caused me a slight degree of panic. “Quick,” I said to myself. “What day of the week is it?” –“Uh . . . March.” I responded silently, before realizing that I’d gotten the answer wrong in two regards. Was this evidence that I was losing my brains? Or was Beth correct in surmising that the unspeakable [not to be described] truly the effect of having watched Trump’s State of the Union address? Just then I caught myself. We live in an era in which one “unprecedented” act or event is followed by an even grosser one.
I proceeded to prepare a bowl of oatmeal, which I consumed without incident—meaning, no jagging cough—then enjoyed three-thimbles’ worth of coffee all gussied up with a liberal dose of chocolate-flavored Ovaltine and exactly one second’s worth of half-n-half, again, without any further apparent loss of brains.
With confidence in the future—my future—restored, I merged into the fast lane of our grandson’s trucks, trains and heavy construction equipment as he drove them hither and yon over his expanded play area. Our son had already left for work, involving a long commute through . . . What?! Another snowstorm?! (Yet, despite all that he juggles, he’d managed to remember my request yesterday evening to print out my comments to writing assignments by my two high school student mentees—and there they were, neatly placed on the kitchen dining counter.) Our daughter-in-law, meanwhile, had to recalibrate her scheduled errands, now that the Montessori school had canceled Dio’s day of learning. His regular six-month check-in with the pediatrician, however, was still on schedule. With the snow accumulating at a rapid rate, she now had to add 45 minutes behind the snowblower before she could reach the . . . unplowed street at the base of the driveway. At least it was a downhill challenge. For the neighbors across the (unplowed) street, snow removal is an uphill battle.
With reasonable confidence that my brains were now confined to their designated area, I suited up to do my part in supporting the affairs of the household. After all, thanks to the blizzard, our status as invited guests had turned into non-rent-paying holdover tenants. Time to redeem. The kitchen trash and recycling bins, I noticed, had reached capacity. Plus, today was trash/recycling day, weather or not, whether you liked it or not. As I donned my wool cap and pulled on my mittens, I announced my intentions.
“Watch out,” said Mylène, “it’s very slippery out there—everywhere.”
She was correct—confirmed by my first tentative step out of the garage onto the sloping driveway. Two more gingerly steps took me within grabbing distance of the trash bin around the corner from the garage doorway. Maneuvering cautiously, I positioned the trash bin around in front of me and let gravity do its thing down along the very side of the pathway blazed by the snowblower. It was very slippery, and I imagined what might happen if I were to go down—BAM!—and lose my grasp of the rolling bin. The bin would likely drop down on its backside and slide all the way . . . into the snow along the first curve some yards ahead. Or would it rotate as it slid, emptying its contents along the way? I pictured a whole lot of trash circling its way down the slippery slope until it re-collected itself where the driveway apron yields to the roadway. At least the trash bags are white, I thought.
As good fortune would have it, however, I—and the trash bin—made it without incident to the bottom of the drive. Armed with confidence informed by experience, I repeated the feat with the fully loaded recycling bin. Not one to quit just because I’m ahead, I climbed back up to the garage for a snow shovel, then trekked down to the street yet again to excavate a path from the (by now) plowed street to the household’s mailbox, which like a wandering goal post, had shifted “inland” on account of the enormous snowfall of late.
In the midst of restoring access to the mailbox, I heard the sound well-known to us Minnesotans: the rumble of a heavy steel plow blade running across the stone cold pavement covered with heavy snow. The Chester town plow was making another round to push back the heavy snow an extra foot or two. I flung the shovel well past the plow zone, then moved quickly to pull the trash and recycling bins back into the driveway to let the plowman accomplish his task. To avoid being the headline in the next issue of the local paper, I skittered to the other side of the street to be clear of . . . the plowman’s blade.
As the plowman approached, I smiled and gave him the thumbs-up. He slowed, stopped and rolled down his window to greet me. Then began what would be a delightful conversation—starting with snow, circling the globe and ending with ICE. This gentleman had seen a lot, traveled a lot, done a lot. He knew the world, and as a veteran (Desert Storm I) and retired policeman, he was far wiser than I about how the world works. He also stressed how important it is to listen to people—”really listen to people so you know where they’re coming from and even to the point of maybe changing your mind if what they’re saying makes sense,” he said. Yet, he was also unbending about some things, just as I am. He was incensed by what he’d heard and seen about ICE in Minnesota and said it was sheer thuggery, not law enforcement. Despite his serious worries about our country, he was at the same time hopeful, pinning his hopes, just as I pin mine, on the millions of good people in America and around the world who do good works and do them well.
I told him we’re frequent visitors to this fair town and that I looked forward to continuing our conversation. He responded in kind.
I was feeling better already. Here was a “random guy” driving a snowplow past Byron and Mylène’s family home in Chester, Connecticut; a thinking, well-informed person of solid character, who cares about people, cares about his neighbors and community, cares about his country and . . . who votes. He’s not alone—after all, don’t I already know a lot of people from the same mold, and wherever I go and stop to chat with people, don’t I encounter more from the Party of Good People?
The country isn’t unhinged. Only its leadership is.
By the time I’d climbed back up the slippery driveway to the house, I’d forgotten all about the cold inside my head. I was now all warmed up to take on the rest of . . . a snow day in Connecticut.
Subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.
© 2026 by Eric Nilsson
