USELESS RULES That Holland is buried under a pack of snow can hardly have escaped anybody. While frantically trying not to lose my balance between our home and the supermarkt, I have to think of my father. Not that he had an extraordinary tendency to stumble or fall, or alternatively, had a superior breakfall technique. No, as soon as the pavement before our home got covered with snow, my father hurried to the garden shed, where a special tool was waiting for days like this.      With the meticulousness characteristic of my father, the pavement was thoroughly cleared of snow. But the ceremony was not completed yet, for then my father went up to the stove (which was fired with coal) and drew out the ashpan. The ashes were strewn all over the pavement, which gave the street tiles a certain degree of roughness. Needless to say that the elderly and others who walked with difficulty praised my father to the skies. But we children were less enthusiastic. Both our sledding activities and the rolling of big snowballs were seriously hampered by dad's specially prepared pavement.   But what I'm wondering about is this: my dad cleared the snow because of a municipal law which stated that the pavement must be kept free from snow by those who inhabit the ground floor. As far as I know, this obligation still exists, so why isn't it maintained? On the other hand, if those who should govern us are once again too lax, why not cancel the law and all those other rules that nobody deems necessary to obey or to maintain? This weblog appeared in Dutch on 4 March 2005 on Internet site Overtom.nl.
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