That is some good stuff.
We used to do such a thing, back when I was young and neighborhoods were allowed. We had a Gravely - with the heavy cast-iron snowblower attachment. Anyone who was of that era, the 1950s-1960s, knows what a Gravely was like.
My old man bought it new in the early 1950s, when he decided he wanted to build his own home and become a small-landholding farmer. WHILE of course working a job. What he didn't expect was the flurry of transfers, job changes, travel, that was part of middle-class 1960s life.
But the Gravely remained - relegated to winter-only snow work. And since snowfall in the Cleveland area (where he'd moved after leaving northern Indiana) was mostly light, with maybe one heavy snowfall a year...we got into a routine. The Gravely was in the back of the garage, piled up with junk. In October, my older brother, and then later, I, would wheel it out, change the oil, put gas in, fire it up, run it for an hour. Works, good.
Then when the big event, a 12-inch snowfall would hit...and the snowplows would push the sloppy, salty mess onto our driveway apron...just wheel out the (500-pound) Gravely (after getting the detritus off it) and just fire it up.
Just. Leather strap that would rap around a pulley back of the engine, looked like a flywheel but actually the crank was three-piece with counterweight flywheels. But "just" wrap that thing up, choke, ether starter-spray...and PULL!
Lather, rinse, repeat. Half an hour, and much sweat, later, you might get a couple of chuffs out of the engine. That's progress...three more winds-up and you're off!
Let it get up to operating temperature - so the choke can come off (you had to go under the little hood to get to the choke) and then engage the blower (a dangerous, inconvenient PTO lever that had to be turned 180-degrees) and then, start digging. Once the engine was up to speed, it went fast.
Now, you got the thing running and warmed up...it'd be a waste to not use it, right? Old Joe lived next door...his son had grown up. Joe would sometimes pay a gas station to plow - he wasn't a regular plow customer, but they knew him. But with the engine running, might as well do his - four passes, make $10. Harvey, the other side...his rebellious hippie-chick daughter had left; Harvey was an older insurance man. Do his. Pays to stay on the neighbors' good side.
Then there was the sidewalk. That was a new thing - our road started as a country road, with all the little residential lots being made out of an apple orchard, the city finally ordered all the property owners to build sidewalks in front of their homes. Yeah. Court order, no money given for it.
But they were needed. Several people and about six girls from St. Joseph Academy, had to walk the sidewalk to the bus stop on the main drag...St. J didn't provide school buses; it's all part of being a young adult, girls, the nuns would tell them...
So I'd run the blower up the sidewalk from the intersection with another street below us, up to the state route. For a few years, I was a hero. Municipal sidewalk plows were about 20 years in the future.
But all that kind of thinking is all gone, now. More likely your neighbor would dump a load of snow IN your driveway, just to get a reaction. People today, just love trouble - look at Minnehaha, now...
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