Township roads run out past the last subdivision to gravel shoulders, ditch lines and long stretches where the wind has room to push snow back across a lane. Clearing them is night work — headlights, a blade down, salt going out behind — so that morning finds the pavement ready before anyone has thought about it. Storms in this part of Illinois often start as rain and roll over to snow after dark, which is the hardest kind to stay in front of. The measure of the job is whether the drive to work goes by without anybody noticing it happened at all. Roads open: that is the entire assignment.