AUBURN – Even with his left arm clutched tightly to his body, Joe Widell usually has no trouble clearing the snow from the front of his house.

A stroke in 2000 left him with limited use of the limbs on his left side.

A brace steadies his left leg, and he keeps his left arm curled at his side. Neither is much use when it comes to handling a snow shovel or pushing a snowblower.

That’s OK.

It might slow him down – a little – but it doesn’t stop him. Like most household chores, he has clearing the snow down to a steady, straightforward science.

All he needs to do is work.

“And I’m a workaholic. I always have been, all my life,” the 68-year-old Widell said Thursday. “Work is my relaxation.”

A former Navy man and Bath Iron Works electrician, Widell retired in 1995.

“Everything was supposed to get easier after that,” he said. He was sitting on the floor, working on a home project in 2000, when he heard a strange sound over his right ear.

“You know that sound a screw makes when it turns in really tightly? It was like that,” he said. The left side of his face drooped, his leg collapsed and he tried to prop himself up with his left arm.

“But there was nothing there,” he said. “I just toppled over.”

He learned later that the strange sound was a vein bursting in his head.

Geri, his wife of 47 years, said it’s been a long road back, but he is back. He drives and spends his summers working in the yard.

Thursday’s chore was clearing the heavy snow off his drive. He rarely resorts to using a shovel, relying instead on a powered snowblower that can be controlled single-handedly. But sometimes only a shovel will do, and he can manage.

Still, it wasn’t an easy job. It wouldn’t be, even if he had two hands. The snow kept clogging the auger on his snowblower, forcing him to stop every few feet and clean it out. Finally, spraying some wax on the auger did the trick. He had his driveway clear by 11 a.m., and had started digging out around the fire hydrant on his property.

“Of course, the ridiculous part is that all of this snow will probably be gone by this time tomorrow,” he said.

Neighbor Irene Coady said Widell’s an inspiration.

“He’s out there all year long, doing something or some project,” she said. “He’s a very good neighbor, always there to lend a hand to someone. You expect he’d be the one getting help, but he’s the one that gives it.”

It’s just the way he lives, he says as he turns back to his work. Each of his parents died of a stroke, so he knows he’s lucky.

“I always said I’d live to be 122,” he said. “This just made it a little harder, but at least I still have a goal.”