SOUTH BOSTON (FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) - It’s a battle every year in Southie after a big snow storm: people shovel out a parking space and then try to save it. South Boston residents do it after every storm. They mark their parking spaces after they shovel them out and claim them with chairs, cones, trash barrels and Christmas trees. Some save spots by not shoveling at all. Mayor Menino reminded parking spot savers earlier this week that lawn chairs or other items should be removed 48 hours after a storm. But not wanting to start a battle, the city now says it will only collect those items if a complaint is called in or when trash day rolls around.
Its finally here! I was seriously getting nervous waiting for this story to make its first appearance of the year, but in the end the Boston news outlets just couldn't help themselves, and I'm glad. I wouldn't want to live in a world where Boston's 3 annual stories aren't reported on. What are those three you ask? Why, I'll tell you!
First, in the Spring, there is the annual coverage of the Boston Red Sox equipment truck packing up and heading south to Florida for spring training. I have no idea how this first became a news worthy story, presumably there were a few very slow spring news days way back when, but its become Boston's unofficial first day of Spring each year.
The second arrives in the Fall, and it is Moving Day for all the Boston colleges. Typically in the first week of September news crews rush out to take pictures of double parked cars, students carrying futons up stoops, and moving trucks illegally parked on sidewalks. The hard hitting coverage occasionally touches on raw human emotions as overly saddened parents weep as they drop off their freshman kids for the first time, knowing that in the first two months in school that kid is going to do everything they could never get away with while living at home.
And finally there is the Southie Snow Storm parking story (video below). An annual collage of various unwanted house hold items cast out into the cold, but given new life and value as they defend peoples most valued real estate after a snow storm, their shoveled out parking spot.
I'd say its a truly sad state of affairs that people have to save a spot they've just shoveled out. I'd like to think people would have the decency not to steal a freshly shoveled spot someone else worked for. But then again I'd be a hypocrite. A few times during my street parking days I'd literally barrel out of my snowed in parking spot and move up two spots into a freshly abandoned clean spot. Sure this led to uneasy stares from neighbors and a couple of notes draw into my car in the snow but my feeling is if you didn't take the time to drop a household plant or desk chair into the spot it obviously didn't mean that much to you. Don't bitch at me for being resourceful.
