In Honor of Arthur Sicard
Submitted by Down East on Wed, 01/16/2008 - 6:09am.
January 15, 2008
The January thaw ended with a certain finality yesterday when a nor'easter blew through our part of Maine and dropped upwards of twelve inches of fresh snow. Last night, while I was moving the snow from my driveway to my lawn, it occurred to me that Maine needs a new holiday, and it should be December 17. That was the day in 1876 when Arthur Sicard was born in Qu`bec.
Sicard is the man who invented the snowblower.
Back in 1986 my neighbor across the street, an elderly housebound BIW retiree, made me a deal - out of pity, I suspect, after watching me hand-shovel my driveway for an entire winter from his wheelchair by the front window. He was paying an outrageous amount of money each winter to have his driveway plowed and walk shoveled. He said he would buy a snowblower if I would keep it in my garage and use it to clear his driveway. In return, I could use it to clear my driveway and walks. As the owner of the longest driveway in our South End neighborhood, I jumped at the offer.
More than two decades later, the deal still holds, although Mort Holbrook passed away five years ago and his son now lives in the house. I'm still using that same snowblower, a descendant of the truck-mounted version that Sicard invented in 1925 up in Montreal. With each snowstorm - and we've had a passel of them this winter - I and innumerable other Mainers thank Sicard's ingenuity, even we don't know his name without a Google search. Sicard, who died in 1946, deserves a day to call his own - or at least a legislative resolution honoring his inventiveness.
Jeff Clark
Senior Editor and snowblower enthusiast
January 15, 2008
The January thaw ended with a certain finality yesterday when a nor'easter blew through our part of Maine and dropped upwards of twelve inches of fresh snow. Last night, while I was moving the snow from my driveway to my lawn, it occurred to me that Maine needs a new holiday, and it should be December 17. That was the day in 1876 when Arthur Sicard was born in Qu`bec.
Sicard is the man who invented the snowblower.
Back in 1986 my neighbor across the street, an elderly housebound BIW retiree, made me a deal - out of pity, I suspect, after watching me hand-shovel my driveway for an entire winter from his wheelchair by the front window. He was paying an outrageous amount of money each winter to have his driveway plowed and walk shoveled. He said he would buy a snowblower if I would keep it in my garage and use it to clear his driveway. In return, I could use it to clear my driveway and walks. As the owner of the longest driveway in our South End neighborhood, I jumped at the offer.
More than two decades later, the deal still holds, although Mort Holbrook passed away five years ago and his son now lives in the house. I'm still using that same snowblower, a descendant of the truck-mounted version that Sicard invented in 1925 up in Montreal. With each snowstorm - and we've had a passel of them this winter - I and innumerable other Mainers thank Sicard's ingenuity, even we don't know his name without a Google search. Sicard, who died in 1946, deserves a day to call his own - or at least a legislative resolution honoring his inventiveness.
Jeff Clark
Senior Editor and snowblower enthusiast
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