City of Good Neighbors

by Patty Klemann

I'll never forget the November 2000 storm. My car was in the shop, and I was issued a smaller car. By the time we were allowed to leave work, my rental was buried in snow. All I had was a little snow brush to shovel out my car.

I called AAA, but they said the earliest they could come would be two hours. There was hardly anyone that I recognized from work in the Parker lot. AAA never came, and the cell lines were down. By this time it was dark. I asked two guys in a truck to help push me out. They couldn't do it. I was really depressed as I watched them take off effortlessly in their huge truck.

I saw a bunch of students in just sweatshirts and gloves, doing cartwheels and wrestling in the snow, having a really good time. I thought I'd ask them to help me out. They did, and I got halfway through the parking lot and got stuck again . . . because I was trying to offer them ten bucks through my window to get them a pizza, and I was asking them to help someone else who was stuck too. I wasn't paying attention and I went right into another snowdrift!

I kept doing the back and forth, the drive and reverse, and of course it didn't help at all. I was about to give up, park my car, and sleep in my office, when these four guardian angels, it seems, came up to me. What good neighbors! They completely got me out. I wish I knew who they were. I couldn't tell if they were a father and his three sons, or if it was a professor and three students. After I was out, they went to someone else, and even before me I saw them helping someone else.

I was impressed by how everybody went out to help each other, and I really do think that Buffalo is a city of good neighbors. On Hertel I even witnessed a group of neighbors attempting to push out a tractor-trailer that was stuck in the road, and then a metro bus.

I had felt so sorry for myself earlier when all those people were leaving the parking lot and I was stuck. When I got to my destination, which was not very far, I realized I was one of the luckier ones after hearing all of the reports on the news.