The Path

I went to college in the cold town of Gunnison, Colorado. Except for a rare event, when the snow thickly covered the ground it stayed throughout the duration of winter. During such a winter the snow blanketed a field that separated multiple buildings on the campus of the college I attended. Like ants following a scent, the students followed the same path across this field.

In the summer, although there were not regular classes, enough students took the path that their shoed feet wore away the grass down to the dirt. Each summer the grounds crew re-sod the path and posted barriers with the intention to deter people from walking the path. This never worked.

Fresh snow kept summer-shoed students from walking the path, but only until someone came who didn’t mind the cold slosh of wet shoes or until someone came with boots fit for pounding down virgin snow. Once the path was made, enough feet trod it so that snow was smooth hard and slick. When a line of student were on the path they looked like cows who make the same kind of paths through the snow to their food source.

This snow path was great, except for two problems that came with it. The first was, as I said, the path was slick so that if your foot hit the edge of the path it would slide down into the powder, filling your shoe with snow destined to melt and soak your foot. The second problem was when I was traveling one way on the path and another person was traveling the other. This wouldn’t be a problem on a wide path but this path was as narrow as two shoe widths. One beautiful time my opponent quickly chose the powder and let me continue with dry shoes. But then there was the time when the motivation of Robert Frost, to chose the road less traveled, was not strong enough, and my opponent was not straying. Neither I nor my opponent wanted wet shoes. With out pausing we grew closer to each other. It was a game of winter- snow- path chicken. This second problem was once avoided by someone who stomped down a diversion. I walked out onto the other path and everything was fine. But this time the other path was too far away. I lost the game. Admitting that I was a chicken I tried to tell myself that I did the right thing over the complaining shout of my cold feet.