Well, we’ve had two snow incidents so far this year and by the time you read this, we might have hit three. Perhaps four. It’s winter in New Hampshire.

Even if it is still just two – we hesitate to call them storms; the first was kind of nothing, the second a bit more, but still – our road departments were already doing their jobs and in many towns, the plow guys were out early and often.

During spring, summer and fall, we have a tendency to take the plow drivers for granted. We take a lot of our public servants for granted – police officers, firefighters, crossing guards, postal employees, even our elected officials – and that’s really not surprising. If we don’t need them, we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them, unless we’re angry at them for some reason. That’s particularly true of elected officals, naturally, but public works employees have sometimes taken the wrath of the public. It’s part of the job.

But when winter comes rolling around, well … Where are those plow guys? We have to get to work. Why haven’t they plowed yet? Why’d they plow in my driveway? Let’s blame our elected officials. Let’s blame somebody.

As Tony Soprano said to his friend, Artie Bucco the restaurant owner, “You’re always looking to blame somebody.”

The fact is, the vast majority of our public servants work like heck on our behalf and that is especially true of the plow drivers who don’t wait for sunup to get the plowing day started.

Thanks.