Kicking Winter when it's down

 Several times on Sunday, a rare mid-March day of sunshine and upper 50's temperatures, I came across people outdoors with a shovel or rake, attacking  defenseless piles of snow. They were digging in and spreading out the snow from their piles, presumably in an effort to make them melt faster, to make them just go away, for crying out loud!

I scratched my head.

Most of us seem content to let the little snow piles be, knowing that they will melt and fade away in their own sweet time.... time that will likely run out in the next day or two. But these snow-killers, these axe-murderers of plow-piles, seem to have something inside of them that drives them to kill, perhaps uncontrollably so.

A neighbor who confessed to his own heinous snow-killing history offered this as a reason for the mayhem: at Winter's watery conclusion, when the end is so obviously near, he (and others like him?) take great pleasure in giving winter some of its own medicine. With a "take that!" attitude, they teach Old Man Winter a lesson by kicking him when he's down, dishing out to him the kind of pain that he dished out to us all winter long.

Issues, for sure. But if it makes for a happy and well-adjusted Spring, Summer, and Fall, so be it.

Note to self: during Winter, be sure not to shovel snow onto neighbor's lawn accidentally.

Fletcher Keyes hosts the Fletch & Heather morning show on 94.9 WOLX