It’s a good time to say thank you

Say thank you.

This was one of those weeks.

Whenever we see a forecast that calls for massive amounts of snow, we can’t help but think the meteorologists will be wrong. Perhaps they’re over-hyping the storm. (Weather coverage draws plenty of eyeballs, whether it be to TV screens or social media feeds.)

Sometimes they are wrong.

They certainly were not this week.

There was snow over the weekend. There was more snow Monday morning. And then the serious snow began Monday afternoon and kept going strong through Tuesday morning.

It brought with it plenty of those trying to help.

I was out Monday walking my dog — Scooter doesn’t seem to care too much if the temperatures are in the single digits or if he has to hop along through a foot of snow. As we strolled down Tenth Street in Portland, headed back toward home, there was a car struggling to get through the intersection at Bridge Street. We stopped to try to move him along with a push — the driver was attempting to get to his grandmother’s house to clear her driveway — but were unsuccessful and he decided to turn back up and go home. He was trying to help.

Then, early Tuesday morning after yet another walk, I was out shoveling my driveway. As I was about halfway through the process, a truck pulled up and a man got out and began shoveling one of the driveways across the street. I don’t know if he was related to the resident or was contracted to do so, but he was helping.

As we both shoveled away, another truck came down the street. It was headed to plow a driveway a few houses down. Like the shoveler, I don’t know the circumstances, but again, the driver was helping.

Those are the things that stand out during times when the weather impacts our daily lives. There seems to always be someone helping out their grandmother, their friend, their neighbor.

And, of course, there are our many government workers, the Indiana Department of Transportation, the county and our cities, towns and villages. Without them, the travel restrictions we had to deal with this week would have been more severe and lasted far longer than they did.

So, we really should say thank you.

Thank you to:

•County, city and town workers who are driving plows, dump trucks and other heavy machinery in order to clear the snow away.

•Independent contractors who make their way to our homes and businesses to clear our driveways and parking lots.

•Emergency personnel who are there to help us 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year whether we’re buried in a foot of snow, flooded or cooking in the summer heat.

•Jay County REMC and Indiana Michigan Power crews that work to make sure we have power, and thus, heat.

•Those who go well above and beyond the call of duty. On Tuesday, we wrote about a sheriff’s office employee who went into work Monday night and slept there in order to make sure he would be on the job Tuesday. We know there are many more like him. There are law enforcement officers, firefighters, nurses, etc., who go well beyond the 9-to-5 to make sure these essential services are staffed.

•And to anyone else I may have forgotten. There are so many who work to make our lives a little easier during these times.

Yes, the snow can be no fun. (It can also be a lot of fun, once the travel issues are gone and we get to sled, throw snowballs and watch our dogs burrow through it.) Yes, children probably miss their friends at school. Yes, it can be a challenge to get to work. Yes, it can be extremely frustrating to be stuck at home for days on end.

But at the same time, there are so many working to clear the white stuff and get us back to school, back to work or simply out of the house, so many helping. They deserve a big pat on the back.

Thank you.