Some storms in Barrington don't really fall — they varnish. A night of freezing rain, and by morning every step, stair and sidewalk downtown wears the same clear shell. Don Jacobs Services works those mornings with a shovel's scrape and a spreader's hiss, breaking the glaze, plowing drives back to blacktop, laying salt on the walks that refuse to thaw. Cook Street and the blocks that feed the train platform keep their own tempo, and the work has to be finished before the commuters come down them. Winter in this part of Illinois is long and inventive, and every storm asks a slightly different question. Answering it well looks like a clean edge, a dry step, and nobody thinking twice about their footing.