Displaying a willful ignorance commensurate to their denial of reality, some boneheads just don’t get it; that a snow plow, by both definition and the laws of physical science, has to push snow someplace else, in order to remove it from the street...

To venture outside is to know another world this midnight Mountain City eve, zephyr gales and driven snow testament to the best and worst of humanity.

Among the best are those who stand up and deliver when their number’s called in service to community, and by extension the national fabric that binds among the grassroots, sea to sea.

Like the NFL quarterback who’s asked to give a damn, and does, public works employees throughout the Eastern Seaboard, and on the streets of Frostburg in particular, put their chins forward, their asses on the line and their plows into the breach.

By keeping their seats behind the steering wheel, 20 hours straight or more, during the recent storms to remember.

NASCAR could take lessons in high-performance endurance from Plow Jockeys.

Folks in these parts know what I-68 can be like going west to Garrett, and beyond to Morgantown; snow squalls glaring in the headlights all the way, two bare tracks to follow, a white-knuckled 15 mph at best.

I imagine that’s a bit of what it’s like to drive a plow in 3 feet of snow whipped by blizzard winds, only, throw in an 8-foot plow, dump-truck girth, and parked cars inches away. For hours on end. Staring through the windshield, clinching the wheel. Concentrating.

Frostburg had one minor accident over the course of 10 straight days that saw city crews log 704 hours beyond their regular 40-hour shifts. That’s another way of saying they were on their game, and dedicated to their craft.

And their community.

At a time of tight municipal budgets, when no raises are provided to meager salaries, when their out-of-pocket expenses are jacked and their benefits are cut.

That’s called standing up.

In a way that only working stiffs can truly appreciate.

Which makes me think the SoB who aimed his snow blower at a Frostburg plow was a man-child of privilege, petulant and pampered, cursing the skies for the snow and the plows for piling it in front of his recently cleared driveway. Cranking the shoot to target the passing truck, he sent snow and gravel through the open window and into the face of the driver. Probably went back inside and took it out on his family.

While the guy behind the wheel frantically clearing his eyes to keep the truck in line, hasn’t seen his family since sometime the day before. And all the while, all the snow that’s falling down and he’s pushing, is landing on his own driveway, his sidewalks, his wood pile.

And like the Marine Corps wife who is my sainted mother, Plowmen ladies manned the home-front, alone with the kids, the cabin fever and the snow just getting deeper.

At Thursday night’s City Council meeting, Public Safety Commissioner Bob Flanigan, whose officers manned the streets and radios 24/7, noted the seriousness of the purpose behind the plowing effort. “We’ve got to get the fire truck to you if your house is on fire,” he said. “We’ve got to get the ambulance to you if we get a 911 call.”

Displaying a willful ignorance commensurate to their denial of reality, some boneheads just don’t get it; that a snow plow, by both definition and the laws of physical science, has to push snow someplace else, in order to remove it from the street. Except for the relative spoonful left in the blade at the end of the night, that someplace else is to the left or to the right.

One would think that a man who labored to clear his driveway, by either snow-blowing contrivance or Bunyonesque blade, would appreciate that all his effort would utterly be for naught, but for the Plowman’s passage.

In Prince George’s County, police were called out after people came into the street and physically threatened plow drivers because they hadn’t gotten to their neighborhoods yet.

In Frostburg, one plow driver got showered with snow and rock, and I have to believe that more than a few got a single-finger flip as a thank-you for all their efforts.

While the ladies in City Hall took it from callers incensed that plows kept pushing snow on them. “Quite frankly, there were some very nasty calls,” Public Works Commissioner Susan Keller said Thursday.

In Cumberland, by contrast, a woman called the city on Saturday asking when the plows would get to her street, 24 hours after the snow had first fallen. By Super Bowl Sunday, passage on the street remained confined to a path the width of a snow shovel. The plow didn’t arrive until Monday.

I have to believe those residents didn’t welcome the plow with a snow-blower blast in the driver’s face.

Frostburg native Bob Sweitzer, who marked the debut of what I predict will be a bright political future with his recent appearance before the Frostburg City Council in successful opposition to the closing of Alley 24, sat in on Tuesday’s City Council work session with me, and heard city officials detail just a handful of the horror stories.

I ran into Bob Wednesday night at Wal-Mart, where the good family Sweitzer was hunting cole slaw for the Friday night K of C Fish Fry at St. Mikes – always a great deal and a great eat, and still for a great cause, even if St. Michael School is no more.

We talked about the upcoming alley vote, then Bob mentioned running into Streets Supervisor Mike Troutman at a Frostburg Youth League Basketball game at The Armory.

There was only one injury reported during the entire plowing campaign, and Mike suffered it, city officials noted at Tuesday’s work session. Commissioner Keller had singled Troutman out for getting something like 10 hours of sleep over an entire week overseeing the operation, and plowing the streets, and doing whatever it took to keep it all going. Around the clock.

I don’t think he was the one hit in the face with the snow, but I imagine he felt it like a spit in the face, given all that he and his men had done.

Bob said he made a point of sitting next to Mike at the game, and thanking him and the city workers for a job well done. Bob didn’t elaborate on Troutman’s reaction, because I cut him off like an idiot, but in the little he said of the chance encounter, I sensed that the simple thank-you had  reached deep with the man, and was deeply appreciated, for the rarity of its offering.

Commissioner Keller said at the work session that she wanted to do something special for the Mountain City Plowmen, a team that includes virtually every city employee, as it was in the words of City Administrator John Kirby, “All hands on deck” for the days-long effort.

As the city has rightly described the storms of February Ten as “historic” in nature, so too should the community’s thank-you be historic, for those who kept our streets open in the face of back-back-to-back winter blasts. Were I a member of the City Council, I’d set Bob Sweitzer and Barb Armstrong to that community fund-raising task.

And were I to have a vote on what form that thank-you should take, in fine Old Line tradition, I’d cast a ballot for beer and crabs...