Over 60? Need a hand? Read here!

Today it snowed. No big deal, right? Right. However, while I was shoveling I noticed my neighbor shoveling. Nothing unusual there except for the fact that she’s around 85. Now I don’t know about the rest you out there, but my mother taught that ‘if you see an 85 year old woman shoveling snow, then you better help her or you’ll have to deal with me’. So, I went over and politely asked if I could shovel for her. She said ok, with an ‘I wonder how much this kid is gonna charge me?’ look on her face. I asked her if she regularly shovels snow because I usually see her driveway shoveled when I return from work when it has snowed in the past. She said, and I quote, “someone shovels but I didn’t have the greenbacks, today.” Didn’t have the greenbacks? Which brings me to my point. We need to help our elderly citizenry. I don’t know the exact figures, but I have seen estimates that RI has the most seniors per capita in the country save Florida. If so, I wonder how many other seniors don’t have the greenbacks necessary to shovel their driveway? It probably takes the average man 30 minutes to shovel a driveway after an average snowfall. I saw how my neighbor was shoveling and she would have been out there no less than 4-5 hours at her pace. Not to mention all the health risk associated with someone of her age doing such physical labor. I am going to make some inquiries and see if there is an organization of folks who dedicate themselves to shoveling for the elderly so that they can get around on these snow days. If there isn’t one as yet, I hope some of you will contact me and see if we can get something started. As a last retort, once I finished shoveling, she tried to pay me. I had a look of indignation and refused. Our elderly have done so much for us…we cannot leave them out in the cold.