One Sunday it snowed. I heard a rumble and ran to the window. I called my wife and together we stared silently as a snowplow plowed snow. It was a marvel not experienced often in Massachusetts on a Sunday morning.

Southern New England has a different perspective concerning winter cleanups. Our cat sat in the window and watched all day.

In March, we found a cheaper place up the street on a second floor. My wife had accepted a job 17 miles up Route 1 at Maine Medical Center in Portland, which meant our car was available for moving only on weekends.

I did figure out a way to get some stuff up there myself, though. As a fiction writer, I work at home with no deadlines and had the time, why not carry a few things? The new apartment was just a three minute walk away.

Over the next week I labored with a will.

I took a kitchen chair. No problem. Tried a bookcase, piece of cake. Two boxes of paperbacks provided a good workout. I carried a padded glider chair on my head and shoulders. Got my computer tower and printer in one load. A two-drawer file cabinet gave me a struggle.

Then I unbolted the wooden legs from my flat-top desk and found it could be done if I bowed my head, grabbed the bottom and laid it on my back, straightened a bit, held on and stayed hunched over. I walked fast.

But on the next trip an older woman with a big car stopped and beckoned to me. Did she want directions? I lowered a cardboard box to the sidewalk and walked over. She asked if I was going far. Puzzled, I said no. She asked if I wanted a ride.

I hesitated, then said yes, if she was offering. At the new place I thanked her and said only two more trips would do it. She said, okay, and over my feeble protests drove me back and waited while I loaded her car. She had me put a trash barrel in the trunk.

Together we finished in one trip. I thanked her again and said only a lady from Maine would help a stranger move. She told me she’d decided, after a good chuckle, that I needed assistance when I walked by her house with the desk on my back.

I then realized I’d been watched all this time by neighbors and felt a tad sheepish. Except she made my day with her next words.

“Welcome back to Maine, Ed.”

(Thanks, Yvette!)

Edward M. Turner is a freelance writer living in Biddeford who has published stories, essays and poems. His novel,”Rogues Together,” won the 2002 Eppies Award for best in action/adventure.