Winter's meanest trick in the metro-east is not snow at all — it is the glaze that rides up on Gulf air, meets cold ground, and welds itself to every step and driveway in town. Arcos Outdoor Living Inc. reads that forecast the way other people read a schedule, and gets salt down along the Route 159 corridor before the first car finds the slick spot. Plowing is the loud half of the job; the quiet half is the walk somebody's mother takes to the mailbox without thinking twice about it. A cleared lot at daybreak looks like nothing ever happened, which is precisely the idea. Snow removal, worked across Belleville and the towns beside it: Swansea, Shiloh, O'Fallon and Fairview Heights.