Winter in Carbondale arrives more often as ice than as drifts — a gray drizzle off the Ohio Valley that turns hard on the pavement sometime after midnight. A1 Snow Plowing works those hours, when Route 13 sits empty and a parking lot is one wide sheet of dull silver. The blade goes down, cuts the first open lane, then comes back around to widen it until the corners are square again. Walks get shoveled and salt goes down at the doors, so the first person in never has to think about the step. When the sky finally goes pale over the east side of town, the drives are open and the day starts on time.