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religion and snow removal

Here in Minneapolis, we're digging out from over a foot of fresh snow this morning. I noticed an interesting correlation while I was out shoveling. There are 6 houses on my street and all of the church-y people were out with their snowblowers. All of the non-churchy households were shoveling. I wonder if this reflects a sense of self-sufficiency and willingness to do the heavy lifting by your self...any thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Janelle Campbell on December 11, 2010 at 3:58pm

...blush.... Kinda embarassed to say this, but when we were Christians we used to shovel our neighbors sidewalk. I don't think it was anything intentional when we stopped but more of a coincidence. Thanks for reminding me to be a good neighbor, I think I'll go out and take care of her yard now.

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Permalink Reply by Eric on December 11, 2010 at 5:59pm

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Permalink Reply by Janelle Campbell on December 11, 2010 at 9:01pm

Aww, what a sweet picture! And WOW that's a lot of snow! My kids would've been out in our snowpile too but we've all had that tummy bug going around. I think you got more snow than we did here in Erie, PA! I can't say I blame anyone for not wanting to shovel that, my back hurts thinking about it.

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Permalink Reply by Abnormal on December 11, 2010 at 9:59pm

Maybe they prefer doing it the more economic way compared to the break your back way.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Black on December 12, 2010 at 12:07am

If I could afford a snow blower when I needed one, I would have definitely gotten one. Now it is kind of pointless, since where I live, I will only have to shovel 3 times a year on average.

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Permalink Reply by Frank McHugh on December 12, 2010 at 8:46pm

We had about 40 inches of lake effect last week here in Syracuse, and I was out with the snow blower 3 days in row, thankful for the good engineering and science that saved me the hard labor. I think an irrational love of hard labor sounds more like a Puritan religious idea to me.

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Permalink Reply by Eric on December 13, 2010 at 9:16am

My take is that the shovel is more environmentally friendly than the blower, takes up less space in my small, tight garage, and as a youngish, strongish person the exercise does me good. For older folks or those in poorer health I willingly concede that a snowblower is a great thing and don't mean to imply otherwise. All of the people I was discussing are similar situation to me- relatively young, healthy men. And I don't mean to imply any sexism either- my wife was out shoveling right beside me and does a great job of it.

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Permalink Reply by Frank McHugh on December 13, 2010 at 9:12pm

I'll grant you it has less environmental impact ( shovel = 0 ). I think in the grand scheme I probably do more environmental damage with the laptop I'm typing this on then with my snow blower. So maybe my point was just that: no I don't think use of snow blowers, even if only out of pure laziness has anything to do with being religious.

We may get another 8" to a foot here tonight so I'll be out tomorrow morning enjoying my god less snowblower.
By the way great pic of kids in snow cave.

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Permalink Reply by CDB on December 15, 2010 at 3:55pm

by definition i'm not church-y and i have a big ass snowblower.... not sure where that puts me.....

maybe i'm godless and lazy....

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Permalink Reply by Jared Lardo on December 16, 2010 at 1:16am

Possible. Interesting.

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Permalink Reply by Jim DePaulo on December 16, 2010 at 11:11am

I'm 70 and have never used a snow blower. Although it's drier than a popcorn fart this year in Colorado (except in the mountains) we usually get huge upslope storms 3 or 4 times a year. In the future I plan to pay some young strong back to do the heavy lifting - it'll still be cheaper than a snow blower.