Irate Transconians destroy Winter's child like wonder..
By Sean Moore | The Herald | March 15th, 2007
Quote:
Snowpeople around the city are built for fun and in celebration of winter, but their creators are not disappointed when these snowballs are beaten by thugs.
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Feuds are often violent, but on Transcona’s Pandora Avenue a neighbourly competition hinged on displays of winter spirit ended when an array of snowmen were decapitated and mangled by unknown grinches.
A Winnipeg Police spokesperson said they have never received a complaint about violence against snowpeople and have no data on the matter.
To be sure, violence against snowpeople will likely escalate over the coming weeks as warmer weather aids their creation, but for Ron Lechman, his creations have already perished.
Lechman, a 56-year-old aircraft technician, began creating sprawling and towering displays of snow sculptures in his front and back yard four years ago.
Lechman lives on the south side of Pandora’s back lane. North side residents, who heavily decorated their part of the lane, stopped him on his drive to his garage one day to tell him, jokingly, “the south side sucks.”
“So the gauntlet was thrown down.”
Things escalated and “it got to the point where I was going out to Canadian Tire and Wal-Mart and buying lights at half-price and putting them up in other people’s yards – asking their approval and even supplying the hydro,” he said.
But the North still had more lights. So Lechman sculpted a snowman sitting and waving a flag that read “South Side Still Rules.” If the snowman stood up, Lechman said it would have measured over four metres.
Things progressed and Lechman designed a Bart Simpson one year and an abominable snowman lounging on his front yard with a cocktail another year.
This year, with the help of a neighbour, he sculpted a series of snowpeople queuing to toboggan down a slide, which neighbourhood children would have been able to use.
However local, Michelle Bevan, didn’t see it that way and thought it “looked like they were mooning Pandora...I thought the guy had a good sense of humour.”
But it was on a Friday night a few weeks ago when his neighbour heard a clatter from the front sidewalk where the snowpeople were. Moments later he saw bodies flee in the opposite direction and the snowpeople were powder.
“I thought it was a little selfish that a few people, for their brief moment of enjoyment, had taken away the pleasure for a lot of other people,” Lechman said.
“But it was built on public property. We don’t own the snow. And I guess legally if someone wants to add to it or take something away from it there is no legal recourse.”
“And the whole idea wasn’t done for ownership. The whole thing was to get some good exercise and have some good fun with a neighbour and maybe create something that would amuse people so that they would turn around and do the same,” he added.
Similar sentiments are held by Sonja Lundstrom, a nurse at the Seniors Health Resource Team – River East, who recently made a series of snowpeople around her Henderson Highway office and nearby apartment complexes.
“Because it’s snow it’s another medium for art and it gets vandalized...but maybe it’s not vandalism. Maybe it’s creating something,” she said.
Lundstrom thinks people are drawn to snowpeople because it’s “creating something out of mother nature, out of something natural, which is such a marvelous feeling.”
Which may be why North Kildonan father-son team, Richard and Steve Marshall, spent more than three months building a snow ramp for children to use.
In a previous year, they crafted replicas of Easter Island’s famed heads. Vandals, however, have yet to add to their art.
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