We were fond of this weekend’s winter storm. It wasn’t the cold. It wasn’t the snow.

It wasn’t the win for snowpack and winter sports. It wasn’t the berm snowplows plonked at the end of the driveway. It wasn’t the remembrance of frozen pipes past and worries for a repeat. It certainly wasn’t the damage and the danger the storm caused.

It was what we saw happened in neighborhoods around town.

We saw families with kids get out and shovel out the driveways of their more aged neighbors. Unprompted. Unpaid. Just as anyone would want it to be.

We confess to engaging in some inappropriate judgment of families with able-bodied teenagers who did not lift to shovel to help. What is the difference between a family that helps and one that doesn’t? That’s a mystery we cannot solve.

We also saw neighbors meet up in impromptu gatherings, talking maybe when they don’t frequently talk, pushed together by the storm.

That’s what we will remember best about this January storm. We hope you had a chance to savor some of that, too.