Messages in the snow

The rain has melted all this away by now, but the state of Vancouver's sidewalks during our first blast of winter last week got me thinking about how snow-clearing reflects our attitudes toward each other and the community. 

This sidewalk-clearing job does not meet the city's bylaw requirements that property owners or occupiers clear all adjacent sidewalks of ice and snow to their complete width. But somebody has at least made an effort.

This stellar clearing job, just up the street from my house, makes it easy for pedestrians and those using mobility devices. My neighbourhood walks in the snow last week showed that while most people are at least trying to do some clearing these days, very few actually comply with the city's snow bylaws. 

The sidewalks of Vancouver after a snowfall are the stuff of a sociologist’s dreams, a treasure trove of material about who we are and how we behave as a community. They show how seriously we take the city’s stern warnings (actually, a bylaw backed by fines) to clear the sidewalks abutting our homes. They hint at class differences – the wealthy Shaughnessy area, for example, is renowned for its negligence in sidewalk-clearing – and point to the high level of vacant properties in certain areas. They show the contagion of neighbourliness – often, whole blocks will be models of snow-clearing thoughtfulness, as if people don’t want to be the only ones not living up to the standards of the street. They also show that some people clearly don’t care: if theirs is the only impassible patch on the block, so what?

 Our sidewalks also reveal how very differently people interpret – or are aware of – the snow-clearing bylaw, which states that the full width of a property’s adjacent sidewalks must be cleared of all ice and snow by 10 a.m. the day after a snowfall. Some people follow this to the letter – every inch is scraped bare to the pavement, then scattered with salt to keep it that way. Others have a very different interpretation. A single small shovel zigzagged lightly through the snow, as if to provide a hint of a path, suffices. This woodland-trail idea usually leaves plenty of snow, and potentially ice, underfoot – the message is that pedestrians should walk single file and hope for the best. Wheelchairs, four-wheel walkers, baby carriages and shopping carts are out of luck.

 Businesses are usually brisk about clearing their sidewalks; they get more customers that way. In my Dunbar area, the sidewalk abutting an entire block that had been torn down to make way for condos was cleared immaculately the day after our worst snowfall, as if to encourage positive vibes about the new development. But businesses are as variable as people. On Tenth Avenue, the ankle-deep snow on a sidewalk abutting a block-long vacant site where a Safeway once stood hadn’t seen even a tiny shovel two days after the snow began. Presumably the current owners figure their negligence will have been forgotten by the time a new condo tower springs up there.

I think a sociologist could have fun with Vancouverites’ variable responses to snow-clearing. It is, after all, a community service that means people care enough about their fellow citizens to try to keep them out of emergency departments. And those who clear their entire sidewalk of every speck of snow are acknowledging that some people use canes, wheelchairs, shopping carts and baby strollers to help them get through the day.

 The curious thing to me is why some people – and businesses – are so prompt and assiduous, while others are the opposite. Given that snowfalls amount to periodic emergencies in Vancouver terms, are people here any different than those elsewhere about helping their fellow citizens in a crisis? Does this city’s polarization between rich and poor, long-timers and newcomers, renters and owners, enter into it? Maybe the neglected sidewalks are due to large numbers of vacant properties – residents who are on holidays or living elsewhere for the six months allowable before the vacancy tax kicks in. Maybe the homeowners are elderly or disabled, and simply can’t shovel.

In my experience – and I have walked through all of Vancouver’s snowfalls for the past four decades – the state of sidewalk-cleaning is improving, although a very small percentage of it meets the city’s bylaw requirements. Word may be getting out that what was once considered a voluntary, do-gooder act is actually a requirement backed by penalties. Offences are easy to prove; all it takes is a photo of a snowy sidewalk a few minutes after 10 a.m. Last fall, 244 Vancouver property owners ended up in bylaw court for failing to remove snow during a particularly precipitous two days in February of 2019, according to a CBC story. Penalties range from a minimum of $250 for an owner-occupied house to $400 for tenant-occupied properties and up to $800 for development lots. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/snow-shovelling-vancouver-bylaw-court-1.5365469

But about those semi-cleared sidewalks: a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in November of 2019 that homeowners can’t be found liable for accidents on poorly cleared sidewalks. In that case, the homeowners had shoveled and salted, but because of the thawing and freezing cycle, their efforts had inadvertently made their sidewalk more treacherous, resulting in a man falling and injuring himself. Too bad for the injured party, but a reassurance to me; I was alarmed last week to realize that my careful shoveling was actually making the sidewalk more dangerous.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ice-snow-removal-sidewalk-lawsuit-1.5374652

My own Dunbar block is one of those good-neighbour ones, where people mostly scrape their sidewalks bare. Nor is it unusual for one neighbour to shovel part or all of a neighbour's sidewalk, as long as they’re out there. The next block up the hill is nearly as good, but on the corner is one new house, barely lived in, that regularly lets the street down with only a narrow, winding icy pathway cut through the snow. The reasons behind this one little stretch of impassibility, its impact, and the contrast with neighbouring properties – what a goldmine for a curious sociologist to explore!

The snow-clearing job in front of my house. Nope, it doesn't meet the letter of the city's rules to remove all ice and snow, but it's not bad. 

Winter at last

After an unusually mild and pleasant fall and early winter, Vancouver is getting its first serious dose of snow. That's set off the usual panic, with schools and universities closed, the transit system in chaos and dire warnings against venturing onto the roads unless strictly necessary. The University of B.C. even had to cancel its annual snowball fight because of, well, snow. Since the campus was closed, who would be there to fling snowballs?

Here are some photos from our day:

Part of my snow-clearing routine is brushing the snow off the hedges. If the snow gets too heavy, it can break and deform the shrubs. Photo by John Denniston.

John, suitably dressed for winter, tackles the front sidewalk.

The view from the front steps this morning, snow-covered car in background.

The back yard in snow, with mom's old bench well piled.

Snow on witch-hazel blossoms.

The bench looks comfy with all that white fluffy coating, but it wouldn't be.

The bird bath in winter. It won't do the birds much good, but it serves as a good measure of the amount of snow that's fallen.

Little libraries go upscale

Little Free Libraries, those "take-one, leave-one" street-side boxes of free books, seem to be more ubiquitous, and more sophisticated, than they were a few years ago.

 People seem to be making big efforts to beautify the boxes. A closer view of this one shows how it mimics the roof lines, window treatments and siding of the house it fronts. Details like this tend to make passersby stop and look.

In this case, it's my friend Linda, who can't resist a peek inside the little doors.

Aha! A potential score.

In the end, she didn't take it, but it was a good book that a friend had read. The quality of the contents of the boxes may be rising along with their good looks.

When I first began blogging about the sights that drew my attention on my daily walks, I wrote about Little Free Libraries. They’re little boxes full of books, usually just outside a private residence or an institution, that invite passersby to take one and/or leave one behind.

A couple of years later and back to a more regular walking routine, I’m noticing there are more of these little libraries than ever before. And they seem to have upped their game. The boxes are often more elaborate, sometimes mimicking the style of the house or houses around them. One I saw recently was even decorated with tiny Christmas lights. I don’t know whether the quality of the books has increased as well, except that I recently picked up two myself, something I had never done before.

I suspect there are many longtime households, just like ours, that are beginning to realize that they can’t take their books with them. Putting up a cute little box that mimics the place where all those books are over-stuffing the shelves may be a good way to entice passersby to stop, look, and even take some of the load away.

Here's a plainer box that fits in with the more modern houses behind it.

It's well-filled, but despite our inspection, we didn't take any.

A little library, also with windows, a roof line and roof tiles reflecting the row of houses behind it. 

Notice the Christmas lights, top and bottom ...

...and, a door handle that belongs in a jewelry box!

This library is more like the ones that were being built a few years ago. Adequate, but not fancy.

A closer look at that well-weathered box. It may be rustic, but the books inside appear to have some heft.

Freezing the knees and other innovations

Swollen knees have brought John's innovative tendencies to the fore. First he rides his training bike to keep his knees moving. Then he uses ice-packs to reduce the swelling; binding them on with bandages keeps the ice in place and allows him to move around. It's the latest in a lifetime of inventions. 

How it works: First a tea-towel over the knees to protect them from the full bite of the ice. Then the ice-pack. Then a tensor bandage to keep everything in place.

When John was racing go-karts in the early 1980s, he could have done what most racers did to get their karts to the track: buy a trailer. But trailers were expensive, awkward and had to be insured, so he found another way. He built a platform on a roof rack for his Volkswagen Rabbit, to which he attached two two-by-fours that served as tracks to get the kart up and down. From its lofty perch on the Rabbit, the kart was a kind of car-on-a-car that delighted small boys on highways everywhere. John became famous within the little go-kart world for his invention, which was featured in one of the karting magazines.

Then there was the print washer intended to take the tedium out of washing multiple photographic prints in his home darkroom. Water went into one end, while the other was rounded, with the idea that the constant roll of the circulating water would keep prints moving on their own. It didn’t work; prints went every which way, often sticking together. After several versions and much finessing, John conceded defeat to the random forces of wave action and wet photographic paper.

Now, there is the matter of keeping ice-packs in place on his knees, which have been swelling for some as-yet-unknown reason. The solution has evolved gradually over the last couple of weeks, but has now been perfected, as I realized when John walked toward me today with the padded knees of a Star Wars soldier. Beneath a tensor bandage – which John applies with the expertise of a longtime athlete whose uncle was the B.C. Lions’ trainer– is a blue ice-pack, and beneath that is a checked tea-towel that’s a layer between the ice and the skin. John can now freeze his knees and carry on with other activities. His racing days may be over, but the spirit of innovation goes on.

John's invention for carrying his go-kart was included in an edition of Karting News in 1981. He built a platform on  his Volkswagen Rabbit's roof rack, and pushed the kart up and down on removable  two-by-fours. 

Goodbye to the painted ladies

 I made a poor choice for the wall calendar that accompanied me through the last year of my Rome project. I found few of the portraits in the 2019 "Reading Women" calendar  either positive or inspiring. October's was Dirck Hals' Seated Woman with a letter, 1633.

It's Vincent van Gogh, so how can you criticize? But September's L'Arlesienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux, 1888-1889, did not make my heart sing when I looked up from my work.

April's mid-19th century Aristocratic Lady Reading, by an unknown Chinese artist, felt as constrained and awkward as some of my writing.

All through 2019, as I toiled away at my thesis on Rome, I sat under the eyes of a series of somber women. Incautiously, hastily, and so late that my choice had dwindled to almost nothing, I had bought a 2019 calendar called “The Reading Woman,” to fill the wall space above my computer. This is a spot that calls for happy, relaxing pictures – scenes to rest the mind and gladden the eye as a reprieve from the text-jungle of the computer screen.

Instead, there was Dirck Hals’ Seated Woman with a Letter, looking somewhat baleful, I thought. There was Vincent van Gogh’s L’Arlesienne: Madame Joseph-Michel Ginoux, her cheek resting on her hand in an attitude if not surly then at least questioning: “Is this all there is?” she seemed to be asking. There was a stiffly positioned Aristocratic Lady Reading, looking over her shoulder in a way guaranteed to cause a crick in the neck.

 Most disturbing of all was Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with the Defeated Emperor. It took me some time to notice that the portrait wasn’t just of a serene-looking woman calmly reading a book. At her feet, peeping out from under her robes like a child hiding under the tablecloth, was a bearded man wearing a crown. What could be the meaning of such an odd picture? Busy as I was, I looked it up. Turns out that Catherine wasn’t just holding a book, but also a sword, which “symbolizes her martyrdom and death by decapitation under the pagan emperor Maximinus,” according to the explanation by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which displays the painting. “She stands victoriously over the emperor, secure in her eternal, spiritual life.” For the whole month of February, I kept returning to the oddity of a crowned head peeping out from under a woman’s robes.

At first, it's hard to see, but under the lady's robes are a crowned head and hands; she seems curiously unperturbed. The portrait is Saint Catherine of Alexandria, with the Defeated Emperor, c. 1482, attributed to the Master of the Legend of Saint Lucy. 

Not all the paintings were discomfiting. Portrait of Georgine Shillard-Smith, by Hugh Henry Breckenridge in about 1909, portrayed someone who might sympathize with a project in severe straits. And we could at least imagine that the woman reading a letter in Daniel Garber’s Morning Light, Interior, was getting pleasant news. But only four of the 12 portraits showed women actually reading -- most had shoved aside their books or papers, which seemed to be either unimportant props or triggers for severe pensiveness. Altogether, a passive, enervating bunch to survey at a time when I needed inspiration.

Hugh Henry Breckenridge's Portrait of Georgine Shillard-Smith, c. 1909, provided a sympathetic face for March.

Is it consternation or pleasure on this woman's face as she reads a letter in Daniel Garber's Morning Light, Interior, 1923? This was the portrait for July.

For 2020, I got to the calendars before the stock had been too badly rifled. But what caught my eye? After two years’ labour on Rome, with the grueling project finally over and put to bed, it was scenes from that familiar city that jumped out at me. This year, every time I look up from my computer, I will be reminded that I am free.

Now that I no longer have to produce a thesis on Rome, I'm happy to look at  pictures of this beautiful city. They will keep me company through 2020.