Man versus nature

John Aden Lewis

Despite the recent snowstorms in Metuchen, there are several

reasons I will never own a

snowblower.

It makes an awful, high-pitched noise. It burns petroleum and fills the air with fumes. Most importantly, it is snowfall, unexpected and unpredictable, that preserves my connection with the American frontier spirit. In my mind, a snowblower might destroy that connection.

Suburban American living eradicates nearly all of the great struggles between man and nature. In a sense, one hunts and gathers at the A&P, but tracking down a slab of meat in the frozen-food section lacks romance and danger.

The lawnmower has replaced the scythe. The selfsame lawnmower mulches, and thus disappears the rake. Who in New Jersey owns an axe or needs to?

Yet I’ve read enough American history and literature to know that the struggle between man and nature is what helped to make this country great.

So every time I pick up my shovel, my 30 yards of paved driveway becomes the untamed forest, the wild frontier. When I have a shovel in my hand, I become Natty Bumppo, Lewis and Clark, Davy Crockett.

With the exception of battling snow on my driveway, most of my epic struggles these days are not man vs. nature, but man vs. man, and they usually involve traffic.

In fact, my most recent man vs. man struggle was actually man vs. elderly woman, and it involved the Menlo Park Mall, a parking space, profanity and some ungentlemanly behavior. Although the elderly woman’s car was bigger than mine, it was not a proud moment.

Let it snow!