Relay: The War on Leaves and Snow

The war on leaves throughout the Town of East Hampton, New York, has been won. Victory has also been declared in the Village of East Hampton, a village within the township’s boundaries. East Hampton is a small community by United States standards, located along the Northeast coastline. Somewhere in its lengthy history dating to the 17th century tree leaves got a very bad name. 

Tree leaves, you know them: oak, cherry, apple, maple — they became the unwanted guests on lawns, in gardens, fairway, byway, or throughway, destined for a fate worse than banishment. Loud gasoline-powered air blowers with hideous three-foot plastic tubes and backpacks mounted on people’s backs accelerate their demise: The leaves are blown into enormous piles and taken to their fate.

Warlike items, these gas and electric blowers! Stalinesque men wearing protective earmuffs and protective glasses move through Village of East Hampton and town properties alike, blowing leaves into piles. Hell of a racket these leaf blowers make. The U.S. Army is inquiring with East Hampton Town officials if the noise and disarray these blowers create could be used as a counterintelligence deception. Send 20 men armed with leaf blowers to cause a distraction in a military zone or to disperse hostile persons. American police are considering the leaf blowers for riot control. Trump is considering the measure.

After the tree leaves are blown into piles, they are put into trucks and carted off to their resting place. Sometimes a large box truck with a giant tube arrives to suck up the enormous piles of leaves. The truck, with a 10-inch-in-diameter, 20-yard tube attached, makes a ground-shuddering noise when sucking up the leaves. Often the big box truck with tube scatters a fine dust of leaf particles in all directions for 40 yards, coating cars and house windows alike. After being sucked up, the leaves are taken to the East Hampton Town dump, then ground up by huge machines into piles of mush. Poor leaves — what a destiny!

Dads, moms, sisters, brothers, uncles, nieces, nephews used to rake the leaves at their homes, making five-foot piles. Children would take 10-yard running starts and leap maniacally into the piles and disappear. It was rather the spectacle! A 5-year-old vanishes in leaf pile, emerges as leaf child shortly thereafter. It is sad — no more leaf children. 

In modern 2016 East Hampton — tick paranoia, the Howard Hughes germ complex, call it what you may — you see few children jumping in leaf piles. Years ago and through the 1960s and 1970s, laissez-faire homeowners, after raking the leaves into piles and jumping into them, burned them in old steel garbage cans. The pleasant smell of burning leaves pervaded most neighborhoods in East Hampton as late fall turned to Thanksgiving. 

No one really knows what happened. Burning leaves was banned. Industry took over. There is money in beating and pulverizing those poor desperate leaves.

Leaf destruction is big business in East Hampton. Fanatical homeowners hire professional landscapers and pay them lots of money to blow every leaf off their lawns. The sight of a man with a leaf blower blowing 20 small leaves into a tiny pile taking 15 minutes accompanied by atrocious noise is common. 

So it goes: No more moms and dads raking leaves into giant piles. No more nutty kids running across lawns, leaping, arms outstretched, feet airborne, vanishing into leaf piles. No more burning leaves and the pleasant burning-leaf smell wafting through East Hampton neighborhoods.

Onward, to the war on snow. Not more than 10 years ago, before a few hundred Range Rovers and an equal number of Mercedes-Benz S.U.V.s, and more recently Porsche S.U.V.s, invaded town, snow fell in large amounts during January and any rational person stayed home. 

Fifteen years ago, adventurous types took the oldest truck or car in the driveway out for a spin as a storm descended. The proverbial spin down Further Lane, Hither, Middle, Indian Wells! Doughnut spins in an empty beach parking lot seemed normal. Not a snowplow or policeman in sight. After all, it was late January with 10 inches of snow predicted. 

The Village of East Hampton and Town of East Hampton used to let it snow for a few hours and then plow as best as they could. Who in their right mind would be driving? Maybe a longtime resident in an old Ford truck with a broken heater and holes in the floorboard, or a couple comfy and coated inside a Chevy truck. Who else would be driving around in a blizzard?

New politics: mash, plow, and scrape every bit of snowfall to make way for brand-new Jeeps, Range Rovers, and expensive S.U.V.s of every description. The United States government’s assistance to the auto industry has been effective. Just look at all these fabulous vehicles roaring through the small Village of East Hampton. Of course half of these vehicles’ owners own no property here. Yet, East Hampton taxes pay to keep the roads spiffy for these out-of-town motorheads during whiteout blizzards. Impassable snow-covered roads are now salted, sanded; hourly updates are given via social media, via local governments, as to the progress in keeping the roads traversable. 

The question is, who are the roads open for? Schoolchildren dream of snow days; parents do too. Seriously, who drives in New England during blizzards?

East Hampton, New York, February 2016: Men decked out in scarves and expensive coats drive deluxe Range Rover S.U.V.s to shop at Citarella, buying lots of food, some of which goes to waste. Beautifully adorned women ride in the shotgun seats of the S.U.V.s to watch the flurry of the Northeast weather maelstrom descend as hubby shops. Of course some business owners don’t mind. The dedicated employees who show up during blizzards are getting paid $15 an hour. Great Scott, what a deal!

Clear the roads. Keep everyone at work throughout snowstorms, hurricanes, and major weather events. It is good for the 1 percent. They can amuse themselves shopping during major storms. 

Mash and smash those poor leaves, demolish that snow! More snowplows, more leaf blowers — please! 

Morgan McGivern is The Star’s staff photographer.